Hawaii 5-0 Timeline of Characters and Events
by The Cat's Whiskers
Summary: Exactly what it says on the (not) tin - S1 to S4 timeline of what happened when and to whom, anyone who wishes can read, refer etc to this if they want to
1. Before 1941 to 1974

**This is a timeline/chronology of characters and events for the Hawaii 5-0 (2010) reboot. **

Anyone who wishes to use this may do so. Please message me via Fan Fiction Dot Net's PM service if you have spotted any mistakes or want to add anything I have missed or that needs updating. Please note that I have no way of replying to or contacting "Guest reviewers" unless you have an email address/Fan Fiction account.

This timeline doesn't go much beyond Seasons 1 and 2 in detail, thought all 4 seasons are included (Version 1.1 was completed in January 2014 and in the UK transmission of Season 4 is pending). Also, although NCIS, and NCIS: Los Angeles exist in the same universe as Hawaii 5-0 and there have been a couple of cross-overs, I cannot interweave the NCIS: LA timeline, etc., and stay sane, so this is purely Hawaii 5-0. On saying that, of course, we all know that the events of NCIS Season 10 taking place in Washington D.C. were contemporary with (took place at the same time as) the events of NCIS: Los Angeles Season 4 in LA and the events of Hawaii 5-0 Season 3 in Hawaii. If you want to 'expand' your in-universe or crossover genre writing then you could consider the above to also be contemporary with _Numb3rs _Season 5 and _Castle_ Season 5 (in-universe) and _Warehouse 13 _Season 4 (crossover) so forth – at what point does your head explode?

**Apology:** I read the original request for a Hawaii 5-0 timeline on AO3 at the bottom of a posted story but can't find the author or the story now. If you're out there, I hope you spot this.

This _was_ intended to be a general outline only.

It is somewhat complicated by the fact that the show uses real details, e.g., birthdays, of some of the actors for their characters, but not for others. For example, Scott Caan, Michele Borth, Mark Dacascos, Masi Oka, and Jean Smart all seem to have their real birthdays or ages used, whereas Alex O'Loughlin, Daniel Dae Kim, Grace Park, Taryn Manning, William Sadler, Christina Lahti, Teilor Grubbs, Taylor Wily, Dennis Chun, Brian Yang, Chi McBride and Richard T. Jones all seem to have their birth dates/ages "adjusted" to be older or younger than reality.

There's also the fact that for some reason, not sure why, only some of Alex O'Laughlin's tattoos are "canon" – both the two big ones on his shoulders are official, but neither of the two squiggly ones above his nipples are shown on screen; the tramp stamp is semi-official in that originally I think it was banned by the network but everyone forgot about it so every time "McGarrett leaps on a baddie" the viewers can all see he's got it. Oh well, not my problem, that's why you get paid, Continuity Editor of 5-0!

Certain biographic information is also not given "in universe" i.e., on screen during the televised episodes, though some titbits are given in the deleted scenes, but since not everyone has or cannot afford to buy box-sets of TV shows with these additional scenes/commentaries, I have tried to "double source" data from televised episodes that every viewer will have been able to see.

**SOAP BOX MOMENT/Channelling my Inner Danny Rant:** Why? Why? In Season 4 of _A Town Called Eureka_ a brilliant unknown person whom I shall laud greatly had a wonderful realisation of just how extremely frustrating it is to constantly be bobbing out of an DVD episode to watch deleted scenes and then have to "remember" where they fit in context to make the televised episode (edited for yet another Haemorrhoid Cream advert) make (more/any) sense. This brilliant person then gave us a box set with several _extended episodes_. It was a thing of beauty to have episodes where you could watch it all the way through without having to bounce around like a rabbit dosed on LSD. Why can this genius not be rolled out across all networks for their TV DVD box-sets? DVDs Don't Have Adverts! So why not reinsert the deleted scenes into the episode Where They Belong. Extended Episodes Rule! And it will also make the DVDs more attractive to buy if you realise you get to see a bit more than "just what was on TV". Okay, moving on:

**Key to timeline abbreviations:**

S4:15 – S = season, 4 = which season (currently 1-4) and 15 = episode number

_Lanakila _ = title of episode referred to

C. or c. = circa or about

Bef. = Before

Bet. = Between

Aft. = After

? = Query re person or event OR to signify that fact/data/name is unknown/not given in canon

Lt. Cdr. Dr. Capt. – Rank, i.e., Lieutenant Commander, Doctor, Captain, etc.

* = _Nota Bene _(NB) additional note regarding a specific point

KIA = Killed in Action

OSE/OSEs = Off Screen Event/Off Screen Events – a vital tool for TV shows that only have 40 minutes to tell a story. This is where characters later on in the episode or season or series know information or facts that they were not there to see, hear or learn of first-hand. Viewers presume an OSE where that character was brought up to speed on events to avoid having to gift the character(s) with intermittent psychic powers to explain how they know stuff.

**Important:** Please see end of timeline for note about the dates given below.

Hawaii 5-0 is a modern, contemporary-set show of the "police procedural" genre (crime-thriller/murder-mystery).

Therefore, aliens, ghosts, vampires, elves, dwarves (of the race of people variety, not the medical condition variety), clones, teleporting, alternate universes (not to be confused with _parallel universes_ which is a _bona fide _scientific quantum theory) are all Alternative Universe stories – e.g., _Doctor Who, Supernatural, Star Trek, Stargate: SG-1, Stargate: Atlantis, Sanctuary, The Invisible Man, Moonlight, Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter _and so forth.

Crossovers or interactions with shows or other fan-fiction such as _Castle, Elementary, Sherlock, Criminal Minds, Lie to Me, The Mentalist, Numb3rs, Magnificent Seven ATF/MCAT AU Fan fiction series, The Sentinel, A Town Called Eureka _(and _Warehouse 13 _possibly) are not AU stories as they exist in this universe. Hawaii 5-0 exists in the same "universe" as JAG, NCIS, NCIS: Los Angeles and NCIS: Red (pilot), so characters from all three shows exist in Hawaii 5-0, which means that references to or the (guest) appearances of "General Sarah McKenzie" "Cdr. Harmon Rabb Jr", "Harriet and Bud", former SEAL Admiral AJ Chegwidden, Paris Summerskill, Timothy McGee, Jethro Gibbs (Gibbs' dad) et al, are all canonical.

**Timeline of people, places, events in the Hawaii 5-0 universe**

**Updated February 2014:**

Before 1932:

Steven McGarrett meets, courts and marries an unknown woman, possibly Texan, possibly named Joan, in view of Season 4? No information regarding Steven McGarrett is given; however, it seems likely that his father's name was John McGarrett.

c. 20th July/mid-July 1932:

Conception of Deborah McGarrett [Carol Burnett] 26th April minus 40 weeks gestation is 20th July. A healthy 'full-term' gestation of a human foetus is considered to be a minimum of 38 weeks, ideally 40 weeks and a maximum of 42 weeks.

26th April 1933: (dies early 2014*)

Deborah McGarrett is born to Steven McGarrett and his unnamed (so far) wife, probably in San Antonio, Texas [Carol Burnett's actual birthday and birthplace.] It is likely she was born on the mainland and not the Hawaiian Islands. In S2;14, John McGarrett uses the name 'Aunt Deb'. I have been unable to locate the episode where I am sure that Mary said "Aunt Em" and I may have misheard it.

In S4:9, Danny says to Steve, 'Your dad's sister?' since Deb has never been mentioned on screen except by John to Steve in flashback, the fact that Danny knows who she is and her relationship to Steve means there must have been one or more OSEs where Steve and/or Mary tell Danny and Kono (Chin Ho already knows who she is, presumably, from being John McGarrett's police partner) who Aunt Deb is.

* Aunt Deb visits Oahu at Thanksgiving 2013, where she advises Mary and Steve of her inoperable brain tumour; since she does not die in the episode, and to my knowledge no funeral has been shown for her – we must assume that she dies in 2014 as surely the show will reference/mention this – perhaps Mary leaves Joan in Danny's care whilst she and Steve attend the funeral – or perhaps, Deb's funeral in LA could/will be used as a crossover episode with NCIS:LA – there Steve and Danny and Mary are, in LA (where Mary used to live and had a scrape or two with LAPD) and they get tangled up (again) with Callen and Co.?

Before 1941:

Steven McGarrett joins U.S. Navy; is a U.S. citizen but his State or Territory (or District of Columbia) of origin is unknown. As of 1941 there were 48 states in the Union (Alaska was made a State in 1959 and Hawaii in 1959). The District of Columbia remains neither a State nor Territory as of 2014. As of 2014 the U.S. has 50 States, 5 major Territories (Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands) and 11 minor territories (comprising of individual Pacific Islands largely small atolls and islets) and one District. In theory, Steven McGarrett could have come from any of them.

Circa 25th May – 8th June 1941:

John McGarrett conceived – John McGarrett born posthumously on 15th March 1942 subtract 38-40-42 weeks = conception c. May/June 1941. Birth date shown on headstone in S1:4 _Lanakila _is March 15th 1942 to September 20th 2010. (*William Sadler actually born in 1950)

7th December 1941:

Pearl Harbour attack (retaliation by Japanese for Roosevelt's Pacific blockade). Death toll: U.S. Navy & U.S. Marine Corps 2117; U.S. Army: 228; Hawaiian civilians: 57; total American and Polynesian dead = 2402 people. The Japanese lost 32 Air Force and Navy personnel, bringing total dead to 2434.

This does not include persons who died later on in the near or further future as a result of injuries or illness caused by the attack – for example, in the UK, 9 year old Kevin J. Theaker had severe asthma. He died on 30th July 1966 when he watched the Football World Cup and when England scored the 4th goal that won the World Cup, his excitement triggered a fatal asthma attack; on 9/11 a 60-year-old Christian minister who looked out of a window across the river and witnessed the first plane hit the Twin Towers suffered a heart attack due to the shock and died. Persons who died at Pearl Harbour or later due to shock-induced asthma, heart attack or other attack-attributable factor were not counted in the death toll.

The attack largely failed in its aim due to a combination of the bombers missing the factories further inland on Oahu that would enable rapid repair and rebuilding to take place and the fact that the ships harboured at Pearl were by then largely obsolete training ships and the more dangerous modern warships were all out in the wide ocean and so were undamaged.

Officially 4 battleships were actually sunk: the _USS Arizona, USS West Virginia, USS Oklahoma_ and _USS Utah_.

Of the 2117 Navy & Marines killed, the vast majority were 1177 of the 1400 aboard the Arizona at the time, caused when a bomb directly hit the powder magazine, causing chain-reaction explosions.

There were 34 'pairs' of brothers; including a set of twins (1 KIA, 1 survived) three 'trios' of brothers and one father & son (Thomas and William Free both KIA) serving aboard the _USS Arizona_ at that time, including William (KIA) and Masten Ball (SURVIVED). The famous Sullivan brothers, all five of whom would be KIA aboard the _USS Juneau_ on 13th November 1942, joined the U.S. Navy to avenge the death of William Ball at Pearl Harbour (I am not sure why, unless they were related to him?) Kenneth and William Warriner were the only set of brothers where all survived; all others had all or at least one KIA. In canon, Steven McGarrett was one of the Arizona casualties.

15th March 1942:

John McGarrett is born posthumously at Pearl Harbour Naval Station to Mrs McGarrett. Throughout the series, the character is always referred to as John instead of as Jack by everyone, including his friend Joe White – e.g., S2:1 – except in a flashback scene in S4:13 where Chin Ho is recalling events surrounding his father's murder when John is referred to as Jack. I would suggest either name is okay as they are viewed as interchangeable.

The show's portrayal of John seemed very much to be as an only child in flashback apart from the throwaway line in S2:14, until we get to S4:9.

In Polynesian culture, and the US South, and in British culture, it is traditional for children to refer to wider adult relatives and honorary long-time friends of their parents as "Aunt" and "Uncle" even though the genetic relationship between the adults may actually be cousins, or unrelated long-time friends, etc., so there was scope in fan fic to create a 'relative' who was actually a cousin or unrelated lifelong family friend – like how Steve refers to 'Uncle' Ben Keiko and Troy Ookala in the _Hookman_ remake. As it happens, this wasn't the case as Deb was John's biological sister.

No information on the wider family of Doris or Jack (other than children Steve, Mary and in S4 John's sister, Deb) is given. Both Mary and Steve confirm they were sent to different places by Jack in 1992 (S1) – see entries below for 1992 – which means there could be a second living relative – although whether related to Doris and the other to Jack is unknown.

C. 4th April 1942?:

Possibly birth of Doris Unknown; later CIA agent codename "Shelburne" and Mrs Doris McGarrett. In real life both William Sadler (John McGarrett) and Christine Lahti (Doris) were born in 1950, but it makes sense to make them the same age for ease if you are the poor Continuity Editor or a scriptwriter for the show, and of course for writing fan fic (see also 1952)

c. 4th April 1950?

Possibly birth of Doris, which is Christine Lahti's real birthday. However, this depends on the mythology for the show – see 1964.

c. 13th September 1951

Birth of Patricia Jameson [Jean Smart]

15 July 1952?

Birth of Joseph White in Montana? Jack met Joe in 1976 (S2:1, _Ha'i'olei)_ but if Joe was still actively serving in the US Navy in 2010 as a SEAL instructor at Coronado, he had to be younger than Jack McGarrett by several years, as 1942 + 60 years (maximum retirement age) is 2002. For Joe to still be a Lt. Cdr at nearly mandatory retirement age after an active career as a SEAL, at which point he should be up in the rarefied "gods" territory of Admiral White (e.g., as with Admiral A.J. Chegwidden in JAG), he obviously did what he thought was right rather than followed orders well. When Joe had to take early retirement for helping rescue Steve from North Korea in 2012 he was already at mandatory retirement age anyway.

July 1960:

John/Jack McGarrett is 18 and graduates High School (Kukui High?) presumably joins U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis.

26th February 1964:

Wo Fat [Mark Dacascos] is born. John* would have been 22 years old at this point. Although Wo Fat is high level Yakuza in S1, the name Wo Fat is actually Cantonese, and means "sending out" or "sending forth from". Wo Fat's Cantonese name and his Yakuza position may indicate that it is a pseudonym, as in that the Yakuza 'sent him out/forth' to Hawaii.

There is no such language as "Chinese", but there are 7 major Chinese languages plus many dialects. Mandarin (still the official language of China) was once ascendant until the 20th Century, whereas now Cantonese (second of the seven) has become more widespread. In Mandarin 'Wo Fat' is Zhōu Rùnfā. The remaining three to seven languages are Hakka, Min, Wu, Xiang and Gan.

* As of S4, none of Doris's backstory, or even if that is her real name, is known. For many fan fic stories it is easiest to assume she was born in 1942 like her husband, John McGarrett or else that she was born in 1950, as Christine Lahti really was. However, if Doris was born in 1942, she would have been 22-years-old in 1964. Yes, old enough to be Wo Fat's biological mother (although she would also have had to have been CIA to be an Occidental woman in an Oriental culture so soon after WWII). However, if Doris were born in 1950, she would only have been 14 years old in 1964, so could not be Wo Fat's mother. However, whether born in 1942 or 1950, it is also possible that Doris had befriended Wo Fat's real mother and that this woman died and Doris raised Wo Fat until she was reassigned by the CIA and met John McGarrett…and entirely possible that she was Wo Fat's mother but not Steve's – See also S4:2.

After 1964 and before 1992:

Doris supposedly kills Wo Fat's father – whether she did is unknown.

14th June 1969:

Kamekona is born [Taylor Wily/Teila Tuli]

**Update February 2014**

4th August 1970*:

Chin Ho Kelly is born; one of his parents is Japanese** (S4:10) despite Chin Ho being a Chinese name like Wo Fat. His paternal ancestry is also Irish (Kelly is an Irish name). In real life Daniel Dae Kim is Korean. "Police officer" is apparently the "family business". As of 2011 at least 2 living cousins who are police officers have been seen on the show: Kono Kalakaua and Sid "Liufau"; who as of S1:3*** (04/10/2010) has a wife and 1 year old daughter.

* Daniel Dae Kim was born in 1968, however, softballchic34's review pointed out that that the banner at Chin Ho's High School Reunion read: _Welcome back Kukui High School Class of __**1989**__'._ Since in the US High School ends at age 18, subtract 19 from June 1989 and you get June 1970. Since Chin (Kim) was born in August, he would have been 18 in August 1988 as he started his final year of High School in September 1988 and would have had his 19th birthday in August 1989, about 6-7 weeks after graduating High School (the same applies to Danny Williams, etc.) so his final year of High School would be when he was age 18 but in his 19th year of life.

** The degree of cousinship between Kono and Chin is not specified, though there is clearly an age gap between them (in real life Kim is 6 years older than Park). Let's assume that they are first cousins, i.e., one parent of each are siblings. If so, since they have different surnames, Chin Ho's mother must be the sister of either Kono's father or mother.

Since Chin Ho has a Japanese parent, this must be his mother, as Kelly is an Irish/Caucasian name. However, Kono's surname Kalakaua is ethnically Hawaiian (Polynesian) so her father is Polynesian not Japanese. The easiest solution is that Kono's mother and Chin's are or were (Chin's father is dead, we have no knowledge of his mother or Kono's parents) full or half-sisters.

If we add in the extra ingredient of the only other cousin we know (Sid, see below), whose surname is also ethnically Polynesian, assuming he is also a first cousin means that his mother is presumably a sister of Kono's father. On saying that, the degree of cousinship could be more distant – in my fan fic story _Danny Boy_, Sid, Chin and Kono share a mutual great-grandmother of great wit and beauty who had a fondness for sailors and tattoos and a tendency to forget to tell one lover about the existence of the others, which is partly why Chin, Kono and Sid look so different.

*** In S1:3 Sid's surname is never given, but the actor is credited as Sid Liufau.

23rd September 1971*:

Birth of Louis Grover [Chi McBride] in Chicago, Illinois, colloquially known as "Chi (pronounced Shah) town".

* Chi McBride was born in 1961. As with Terry O'Quinn's Joe White character, I thought that about 10 years would need to be knocked off the age for the character to be real life plausible – whilst 42 (early middle-age – see end of timeline for information about dates) is quite reasonable for the character of Lou Grover to be able to up sticks and move to Hawaii and rebuild his police career, 52 (mid middle-age) is far less realistic. Given how close 52 is to the mandatory retirement age of U.S. law enforcement officers** – 57 years contingent upon 20 full years of service – it is simply not believable that a 52-year-old man would restart his career after so many years in his home for the sake of 5 years.

** There are slightly different rules in different states as I understand it, but generally an individual has no choice but to retire at age 57 if they have completed 20 full years' of service – ironically, the only way a dedicated officer can retire after age 57 is if he or she interrupts their service so they need to "make up" 20 full years' service. We know this applies in the State of Hawaii because in S1:15, US Coast Guard Commander Samuel Hale is deliberately made redundant by the State legislature just before he reaches 20 full years of service so they can avoid paying him his old age pension.

11th September 1973:

Jack McGarrett, Troy Ookala, Duke Lukela and Ben Keiko take down a gang of armed bank robbers; Curt Stoner [Peter Weller] becomes 'Hookman' when he has both lower arms blow off by the explosives he was holding. In 2013, Stoner murders Keiko and Ookala.

15th November 1973:

Birth of Grace Tilwell [Sydney Tamiia Poitier] presumably in New Jersey. Killed 9/11

C. 1974 – birth of Michael Noshimuri

27th December 1974:

Max Bergman born in Honolulu – real identity unknown, except that at least one or both parents were Japanese. Adopted parents Bergman which is a Jewish name; Max confides to Danny that his birth mother was murdered by the serial killer "Trashman" and his investigation into the jailed man – Richard Branch – and his expertise as an ME in forensics has enabled him to realise that Branch is innocent (S2:20). All the victims were unmarried mothers who left their babies at the church. It appears that Max's birth mother may have used a pseudonym so his biological family details – parents, grandparents, siblings, etc., are not known to him. Max worries about the medical/hereditary he will pass on to any children in view of his own autistic, OCD and eccentric traits.

© 2014

All applicable parts

The Cat's Whiskers

_Continued in Chapter 2…_

**Update February 2014 posted 9****th**** February 2014**


	2. 1975 to 1999

**This is a timeline/chronology of characters and events for the Hawaii 5-0 (2010) reboot. **

**Chapter 2: **

**1975 to 1999**

**Update February 2014:**

(4th August 1961 – Barack Hussain Obama II born in Honolulu – he features in the show as the only President to have been born in Hawaii).

Before November 1975:

1, John McGarrett serves in Vietnam, achieving rank of Lt., before retiring from Navy (USN Retired) and seems to become a civilian police officer on Oahu* with HPD.

* There is no indication of whether John was raised on the Hawaiian Islands (which did not become a US State until 1959). S1:4, S1:13 and S2:14 indicate that his older sister Deb was an established long-term resident of California (at that point LA) by April 1992, at which time Deb was 59 years old. Since Deb was a full 9 years (all bar circa 7 weeks) older than John, they may not have had that close a relationship – when Deb was in her first year at university (age 19), John would still have been at middle school (junior school in the UK). The Army and Navy Academy (formerly Davis Military Academy) was founded in 1910 – it's where John sent Steve in 1992, so it is possible/probable that as a single military widow Mrs McGarrett sent John to the Army Navy Academy at San Diego in September 1956 when he was age 14 and therefore 9th Grade/High School Freshman age. From there (California) John probably went to Annapolis on the East Coast in September 1960 at age 18.

2, Possibly John meets, courts and marries Doris ?, CIA agent codenamed, possibly Shelburne (?) who is fluent in at least one Sino-region language, Japanese. As of Season 4, Doris's maiden name, personal details, etc., are all unknown. It is entirely possible that, like Steve and Cath back when she was in a relationship with Billy Harrington, Jack and Doris were friends for an unknown number of years prior to marriage.

**Update February 2014:**

About week 3rd June 1976

Steven John McGarrett is conceived (1:24) – Doris may or may not be his mother, see 4:2.

Between January – December 1976:

John McGarrett somehow meets Joseph White [Terry O'Quinn], a U.S. Navy SEAL who originally comes from Montana, where he/his family own a ranch (S3). In S2:1 _Ha'i'ole _Joe tells Steve 'in the 34 years since I knew your father' – 20th September 2010 (date of John's murder) minus 34 years = September 1976,* so at some point during the year, Jack and Joe had to meet.

* I thought this also removed any possibility that Joe White is Steve's biological father if Doris was Steve's biological mother, as he was conceived at least 5 weeks before Joe ever met Jack – however, this is not the case as in the show, Steve was born 10th March 1977 rather than Alex O'Loughlin's actual birthday of 24th August 1976, which takes Steve's conception back to June 1976.

However, either way, nor could Wo Fat really be Steve's father, as in 1976 he was 12 years old. On saying that, "Steve" [Alex O'Loughlin] looks nothing like either of his "parents" or "Joe White" [Terry O'Quinn] either, whereas "Mary" [Taryn Manning] is a fair blonde, with light blue eyes as has both John [William Sadler] and Doris [Christine Lahti] and Joe White – Mary is also of a comparable height to John, Doris and Joe, as is Danny – ironically Scott Caan's fair blond hair (William Sadler, Christine Lahti, Taryn Manning), light blue eyes (William Sadler, Christine Lahti), medium height (William Sadler, Taryn Manning) and stocky, 'pocket Hercules' musculature build (William Sadler) looks far more like a "McGarrett" son/brother than does Alex O'Loughlin – tall, lean, brunette hair and dark blue eyes. Joe White also looks more like a relative of Doris (or John) than does Steve.

23rd August 1976*:

Daniel Williams is born in New Jersey. As of Season 1 he has two living parents and his father is a retired NJ fireman. Daniel has at least two sisters, one of whom is definitely older than him. For unstated reasons and an unstated period of time this unnamed sister has been a single mother to Eric ? (no surname given in S3:12 _Kapu_ for Eric's character).Eric was born c.1993. Danny also has one younger brother by an unstated number of years, Matthew Williams.

* No indication is given in canon as to Danny's birthday, so for reasons of simplicity (and my sanity) I am keeping it as Scott Caan's actual birthday.

C.1976:

Births of: Rachel ?, later Mrs Williams and then Mrs Edwards (Claire van der Boom was born in 1983, but that complicates continuity and fan-fic in a way that hurts my brain) and also Stanley Edwards, William "Billy" Harrington, Nicholas "Bullfrog" Taylor, Frederick "Freddie" Hart, Kelly ?, later Mrs Freddie Hart and Max Bergman

10th March 1977*:

Birthday of Steven John McGarrett* – confirmed by the date shown on the arrest warrant against him for the murder of Pat Jameson in 1:24. Alex O'Loughlin was actually born on 24th August 1976. In actual fact, this turns a plausible characterisation into a continuity mistake. In S1:11 Steve tells Danny that on the date of his mother's murder, 'I was 16'. In S2:1 he correctly mentions he was 15. When I thought they used Alex O'Loughlin's real birthday (24.08.1976), the '16' slip-up was plausible characterisation – Steve would only have been a few months away from turning 16 and given the terrible shock and stress he experienced it is plausible he could have made a mistake. However, the canon clearly shows that Steve was born 10.03.1977, so in fact he had only just turned 15 five weeks before Doris was murdered – so soon after his being 14 there was no way he would have made such a mistake regarding his own age when his mother was killed, so S1:11 must be a continuity error, as S2:1 correctly gives Steve's age (15) on 19th April 1992.

* There is no canon indication of where Steve was born; we only have the reference in S1 that John _'called the four of us 5-0 because we weren't native Hawaiians'._ That statement is true but ambiguous. For example, Danny Williams gets grief from Kaw'ica in S1 because he is not of Polynesian racial extraction. Danny is not a native **of **Hawaii. However, if Danny Williams had been born on one of the Hawaiian Islands, he would be native **to **Hawaii, regardless of his ethnicity or nationality. The classic example is current U.S. President Barack Obama, who is not a native **of** Hawaii, having no Polynesian ethnicity or ancestry or nationality (his mother was Caucasian North European and his father Negroid East African) but is native **to **Hawaii, having been born in Honolulu. Since John appears to have been established in a civilian police career as far as Steve can remember – from age 2 in 1979, and was definitely so in late 1982 when Steve was age 5 – Steve could have been born on the islands? However, this presupposes that Doris is his biological mother (see 4:2 under '20th May 2013 to Present)

19th August 1978*:

Birth of Catherine Rollins [Michele Borth] in Seacaucus, New Jersey – see May 2013.

* Unless it is indicated in the show either by what characters say or what we see – e.g., the reunion banner or the arrest warrant for Steve – I am sticking to the real actors' birthdates, birthplaces and etc., unless this is changed in canon. The Cat's First Rule of Fan Fic: Don't reinvent the wheel, and the Second Rule: It is much easier to use reality and real facts than make stuff up that you have to remember you altered from the reality later on. (It's why I have timelines and character 'crib' cards giving the essential details on characters, places and events).

**Update February 2014:**

After 19th and before 30th of April 1980, 1981 or April 1982:

Mary Ann McGarrett is born. The show seems to indicate a gap of about 3 to 5 years (say 4 years) between Steve and Mary (b.1980, b.1981 or b.1982) but when Jack shipped the two off in 1992, I thought there seemed to be only a 3 year age gap (Mary was 12?) I have struggled to reference this point having spent some time trying to pinpoint Mary's age in 1992 during Season 1 but I couldn't really bottom it – I am positive that Mary somewhere references being sent away when she was 12 years old but either her or someone else referencing that she was 10 or 11 when Doris was supposedly killed in 1992, but again, may have gotten mixed up.

Since a person's funeral is typically held between 7 and 14 days after their death*, Doris was 'killed' on Sunday 19th April 1992, and two weeks' from that date would be Sunday 3rd May 1992, however (at least in the UK) funerals are held typically on a weekday rather than Saturday (traditionally reserved for weddings) and are not held on Sundays (traditionally reserved for christenings).

In S1:4 _Lanakila_ Mary and Steve were sent to the mainland immediately after they attended their mother's funeral, as Mary says this was the last time she and Steve saw each other in person. If Mary was 10 or 11 years old when her mother was killed, but 12 or 13 years old two weeks later when Jack sent them to the continental U.S., her birthday had to fall between 19th April and 3rd May. Taryn Manning was actually born on 6th November 1978 but the show indicates a wider age gap than the 27 months between her and Alex O'Loughlin. I would therefore suggest that Mary was born in late April 1980 or 1981.

* A 'funeral' should not be confused with a 'memorial service'. The funeral is immediate and in some places/cases can occur within hours of the person's death. However, if the individual was well known, or from a widely-scattered family, or was noted for some contribution/good thing, or other specific reason he or she could have a memorial service after the physical funeral, which can be arranged to take place later – sometimes several weeks or months after the funeral itself. Generally speaking a memorial service is held within one year (two at the most) of the person's death, although there are occasional exceptions, such as those held for WWI and WWII soldiers whose remains have been discovered long after they were KIA.

Mary stated that she and Steve had last seen each other at 'mom's _funeral_', but it could be argued that it was actually the memorial service and that because she was a child, Mary could not be expected to know precise nomenclature.

**Update February 2014:**

Late 1982:

Steve (aged 5 years) tells John he wants to be a policeman. Cfvera reviewed that as far as she or he was aware, all John actually said was 'be anything but a cop', not anything about joining the Navy – I have re-watched this scene and cfvera is correct re canon.

However, obviously this is a reminiscence by Steve to Danny and Steve is only recounting the part _relevant_ (or what he believes to be relevant) to that situation.

Again, in terms of fic writing plausibility, we all know that nature abhors a vacuum and that a human child learns by 'Why?' a question repeated endlessly until the child is satisfied with his or her understanding of the answer. Since, up until the age of about 12 years, human neural development means that children typically idolise, adulate and adore both parents but particularly the father, it is simply unfeasible to believe that John just said to his 5-year-old hero-worshipful son 'be anything but a cop' knowing he was metaphorically creating a 'vacuum of ambition', or that Steve would not immediately launch into an epic series of 'why?' questions.

Logically, since John would (unless he was blind and stupid) already be bitterly aware of the corruption in Hawaii from infiltration (Yakuza, Triads, Tong, Yardies), it would make sense that John redirected Steve's focus to his own father Steven McGarrett in the hope that Steve aspired instead to join the U.S. Navy. This might especially be the case if John had gone to High School at the Army Navy Academy in San Diego and _enjoyed it_.

In the episode, Steve does say something about he would never have joined the Navy had it not been for his mom's murder, but this is purely subjective – many teenagers have no intention of going anywhere near their parents dreary old careers until they suddenly realise that these are interesting, exciting, rewarding and meaningful. Steve is speaking about how he felt as an immature 15 year old, not how he might have viewed the situation had he had the opportunity to graduate Kukui High School and talk over his options with his parents.

C.1982:

1, Kono Kalakaua is born, the "rookie" [Grace Park is actually 2 years' older than Alex O'Loughlin, Scott Caan and Michele Borth). It would probably be similar to Mary Ann.

2, births of Adam Noshimuri [Ian Anthony Dale] Jenna Kaye [Larisa Oleynik], Joshua Hirsh (never seen on screen, Jenna's fiancé), Charlie Fong [Brian Yang]

Summer of 1985, before August or else late summer of 1984, after august:

Danny is 8 years old and witnesses his best friend Billy ? drown at ? (S3:6) – although a strong swimmer he develops a dislike of open water, which he ignores to avoid giving Grace a phobia. (I was unable to make out the surname of Billy, even though both Scott Caan and Alex O'Loughlin mention it).

At some point Danny also has an unknown bad experience which makes him develop claustrophobia (S4:6) which is also something else he apparently doesn't tell anyone.

In S4:1 Danny tells Steve that _'for a minute there I thought I was actually happy which is a weird thing for me because I don't really know what that means', _indicating that Danny has experienced distressing events in his past that yet again, he never really talks about.

Again, it could also be a signifier that the character suffers from depression or melancholia (not the same thing). Melancholia is not as debilitating as depression in that the individual functions – apparently – as normal, but in private has great emotional distress. It's like how in NCIS: LA the "big" heroes like Callen and Sam imagine that Deeks, as a cop, has led a pedestrian, boring life because he is a civilian, but as we get glimpses of, Deeks (born Martin Brandel) is not as mundane and everyman as they imagine.

1986:

Chin's uncle Keako (Kelly?) is a serving police officer at this point, also still serving police officers were Ben Keiko, Troy Ookala, Duke Lukela and Koji Noshimuri. Possibly Chin's father (brother of Keako?) is also a serving police officer until he is murdered in 1999.

**Update February 2014:**

September 1988 to June 1989:

Chin Ho Kelly is 18 and Kukui High School Senior Year star quarterback (S1:1). The High School reunion banner (S3) shows he graduated from Kukui High in 1989.

September 1989:

Presumably (not mentioned in canon) Chin Ho joins HPD as a police cadet at this time; we learn (S4:3) that Chin Ho was also in the High School band as a trumpeter (his friend Jerry played the French Horn and they were at 'band camp' together). Since Chin Ho is also very good with computers, there are at least three career opportunities – sport, music and technology – that he could have pursued instead of joining the police academy, but no information is given in canon on when and why Chin joined HPD.

C. June 1991:

Chin Ho graduates HPD Cadet Academy* and his training officer is John McGarrett. They become full partners and were apparently so at the time when Doris was killed in 1992, though for some reason Chin Ho clearly thinks she was killed in a car accident until 2010 – that Chin is unaware of the truth supports the plot continuity idea that John McGarrett was in on Doris faking her own death from the beginning, and that is what he was really telling Steve "sorry" for on 20th September 2010.

* Depending on the cadet's age at joining, from what I have been able to work out so far, police academy training can take a minimum of three months to two years mixing practical and academic training. The average for a teenage cadet who joins at age 18 seems to be about 2 years, whilst someone who joins when they are older (e.g., Kono Kalakaua in S1) is expected to undertake the training in a shorter period of time than the teenager.

From June 1991 – 19th April 1992:

John's trainee and then police partner was Chin Ho, they used to watch Steve play quarterback at Kukui (Steve did not know this).

1991:

Cody Peterson, the son of Rick Peterson [Peter Greene] Danny's training officer is born (S2:15) – he is an only child and at this time it appears that Rick Peterson is an honest, honourable and non-drug addict cop in New Jersey.

Before 1992:

Jack is promoted to the Head of the Organised Crime Unit in HPD.

Before April 1992*:

Jack McGarrett meets Hideki Mokoto (S2:1) at a Pearl Harbour memorial service and the two develop a friendship.

* In S1, Steve explains to 5-0 that his father was Head of the OCU and that in the Champ box he found postcards, from Osaka, Japan, clueing Jack in to the identities of Yakuza 'Oyuban' or 'boss' level criminals. Jack was making such good inroads at stopping Organised Crime that the Yakuza decided on the car bomb, which of course Doris was able to intercept for her own purposes. However, the informant in Japan therefore could not be Doris as she was alive and well in Hawaii.

If we ignore X, some unknown person we have not yet encountered, then the only two real possibilities are Joe White and Hideki Mokoto. Given that the individual would need to blend into the local culture so well as to be 'invisible in plain sight' to the Yakuza who would not notice them, it is far less likely an Occidental like Joe White would be the informant as he would be the immediate suspect when the Hawaiian Yakuza started being killed/jailed. But a wheelchair bound invalid who nobody really looks at is ideal to sit quietly eavesdropping and observing bad guys. Logically, the postcards were most probably sent to Jack by Hideki Mokoto (S2:1).

19th April 1992:

In Episode 1:11 _Palekeiko _Steve tells Danny 'I was 16 and mom was late for dinner – mom was never late for dinner.' And that he was the person who opened the door to the policeman, indicating that John McGarrett was not home and presumably at work on shift.

Cfvera reviewed that _"Steve opening the door when the cop came to tell them that is mom was dead, doesn't automatically mean that his dad was at work. Steve could have simply just opened the door."_

This is true, however, the sense I picked up from what Steve said is that he was the one who was informed about Doris's 'death'. It also occurred to me that if Jack _was_ in on the fake-death plan, arranging to be on shift on that Sunday afternoon meant he didn't have to be at home to lie to Steve's face that his mother was dead – of course that is just speculation, the phraseology is ambiguous.

Since 19th was a Sunday, where was Doris that afternoon? Jack also had to have intercepted the police officer prior to him arriving at 2727 Piikoi Street because the officer told Steve his mother had been killed in a car accident (drunk driver) something Steve and Mary believed without question until October 2010, when Chin*, looking in case file M123750, tells Steve it was his mother's homicide investigation and she was killed by a car bomb. The police officer had to have known about the car bomb so deliberately lied to Steve when he answered the door.

* Continuity issue - Also for some reason despite being Jack's partner until Jack retired, Chin Ho is also somehow deceived and under the impression Doris was killed in a car crash as well. A way around this continuity issue is that Jack, Doris and Joe (possibly with the aid of Hideki Mokoto offering Doris a "bolthole") were all in on the faked-death plan from the start and that is also why Jack was able to so quickly arrange to relocate his children within three weeks of his wife's 'murder'. That would solve a lot of the continuity issues if Jack knew all along (see also 1998 below).

**Update February 2014:**

C. 1st May 1992 – immediately following Doris's funeral, Jack McGarrett takes his children to Honolulu Airport and puts them on different planes (Mary in S1:13, _Ke Kinohi_).

This is the last time Mary and Steve see each other in person until 11th October 2010, which is the first time since 1992 that Mary has returned to Hawaii (S1:4, S1:13). By implication Mary and John never see each other again or speak to each other, although Jack has non in-person contact with Steve occasionally, presumably by phone rather than email or Facebook/Skype because Jack 'hated computers' (S1:1 _Pilot, _Steve to Danny about the 17" laptop of one of Hesse's goons).

So how to reconcile S1:13 with the flashback in S2:14 in terms of timeline believability and continuity? Fortunately, I think I may have managed this one from reading the review note sent to me by softballchic34 – see the text in bold:

The biggest confusion revolved around Steve and Mary being sent away as teens. In 2.14 the flashback with teenage Steve and John McGarrett, Steve walks into the house after school to find his father sitting at the table and John proceeds to tell teenage Steve that he is sending him and Mary away for a while. To which Steve responds with **"I just started my junior year,"** Meaning that this took place 5-6 months after Doris's death as the US school years starts in September (August in some places) and ends in May/June. John says "I'm sending **Mary to live with your Aunt Deb in LA** and **Joe managed to get you in the Army Navy Academy** so you will **only be a few hours away from each other." **

Another reviewer, Anon, also told me that:

Steve most likely attended the Army Navy High School (prep school) in California, and upon graduating, did, in fact, apply to and become accepted into the Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD. After four years there as a midshipmen, he would have, upon graduation, received a commission in the Navy as an ensign, an officer in the Navy.

(It seems I read the website wrongly and Annapolis has no High School (Secondary School, UK) facility.)

The most helpful phrases are a) "Deb in LA and Joe managed to get you in the Army Navy Academy" and b) "only a few hours away from each other".

For a), since San Diego has an airport, it fits with S1:13 that John put Mary on one plane to LAX to meet Deb, and Steve on another plane to San Diego to meet Joe White to go to the Army Navy Academy.

As for b) them having not met with each other since 1992, if you are two mobile adults with cars or money for trains, that isn't a problem, but if you are two minor children with no independent transport or money, you may as well be the other side of the planet from each other.

On top of that, you also have to factor in emotions and grief – Steve is clearly a person who bottles things up and shoves things down and shuts himself up in rhythms and routines and order and discipline – most likely once he got to the Academy he would have kept making excuses to avoid going to LA to see Aunt Deb and Mary – at least for the first year, maybe even two.

On the converse side, as far as Mary is concerned she is full of grief and rage – she has lost her mom, been banished from her home and her friends by her already reserved, undemonstrative father, dumped halfway across an ocean on an elderly spinster aunt with no experience of motherhood (S4 indicates Deb is single and childless) and abandoned by the big brother who was her hero. Since she can't get angry at her mom for dying, her dad is too far away to unload at, she is too properly brought up to be disrespectful and ungrateful to her elderly aunt, the only available target is Steve. In Mary's place, and especially being in my mid-teens by 1993-1994, I would have moved heaven and earth and to have been nowhere near Deb McGarrett's home on the undoubtedly "rare" and "occasional" weekend flying visits Steve McGarrett did make there, relying on sleepovers and weekend parties with 'girlfriends' to punish Steve by my (Mary's) absence.

In this way it is possible to reconcile S1:13 with S2:14 and remove the apparent continuity errors. As for Steve's statement that "I _just started_ junior year", you could get around that by saying that Steve was speaking in the pre-emptive future tense, in that April 1992 was near the end of his Sophomore year and that what he _meant_ was, effectively, '_but I'm just starting/but I'm going to start' _my junior year – that again removes continuity error and puts us back in the safer territory of ambiguous phraseology where we can still have it that Steve and Mary were sent to the mainland only two weeks after Doris's death, not circa five months.

The flashback in 2:14 with John mentioning Joe and Mary's statement in 1:13 also imply that the adults were all in on the fake death plan – how did Joe manage to get Steve into the Army Navy Academy – whether two weeks or five months it's a short period of time to manage it. How did John manage to make travel arrangements with the airline and arrange for Joe to be on hand, etc., so fast? It has not yet been raised in canon but the signs are that Joe, John and Doris certainly, plus at least one accomplice "abroad" – Hideki Mokoto in Japan – were all in on the plan to fake Doris's death.

C.1992:

Koji Noshimuri, prime suspect in the car bombing leaves HPD and begins to work for his brother Hiro.

C.1993:

Danny tears his ACL in his knee playing baseball – in real life Scott Caan tore his ACL doing Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) in September 2010.

**Update February 2014:**

1994:

1, Danny is 18, and graduates high school in New Jersey. Exactly where is not specified, though there is some circumstantial indication that Danny was born in Hudson County, New Jersey, in Weehawken or Hoboken or possibly Jersey City. It is vaguely implied that Danny does not join the NJ State Police Academy immediately (S3:12) and possible that he did not or was not able to undertake any further education beyond the elementary grades (statutory education in the UK), that is, he did not attend university to study for a Degree. In order to attend NJSP Academy he would have had to have had a GED (GCSEs in the UK) but a Degree* is not required.

In S3:12 _Kapu_ when Eric circulates the picture of Danny as the police boxing champ in 1998, Danny says he is 22 and recently graduated. Although each state police academy requires are different and have different lengths of time, the average from commencement to graduation is 2 years, so I have used this. S3:12 in that case means that Danny started in 1996 and graduated in 1998, meaning there is a 2 year "intermission" between 1994-1996. In S3:12 Danny tells Eric that he (Danny) was lucky in that he had his dad around to "straighten him out". In the S1:1 pilot actor interviews, Scott Caan mentions that his take on Danny was that he was a tough guy, who have easily gone down the wrong path and become a bad guy, a gangster, rather than a policeman. So possibly Danny could have been doing things on that "wrong path" during 1994-1996 before his dad stepped in with some much needed firm discipline and set him right.

* The New Jersey State Detectives is a historic, prestigious group of police officers. 24 members from the NJ SP are allowed to join, but must have (a) a Degree level qualification, (b) a set number of years' experience in the field and (c) a good reputation as a police officer. Since Danny qualified for (b) and (c), it is most likely he lacks (a), as the show implies he comes from a blue-collar family with at least four children and therefore he never have been able to afford to go to college or obtain a degree qualification, especially following marriage and fatherhood in the early 2000s. There is no reference in the show but I would say that the way Grace Tilwell, as the senior/more experienced/older partner, was portrayed in S3:12 means that she was a member of the NJ SD at the time of her murder. In real life, Sydney Tamiia Poitier is 3 years older than Scott Caan.

2, Eric ?, son of Danny's older sister and ? is born (Danny is 18, his brother Matt is still in high school).

3, Catherine Rollins is at the Army Navy Academy in San Diego by the age of 16* to finish high school preparatory to joining the US Navy via Annapolis.

* The weekend of May 25th/26th 2014 (S4:2) when it is inadvertently revealed to Steve that she has been considering the Navy for "a while", she tells Steve that she has been in the Navy for 'half my life' – she would have been 34 going on 35 in May 2013, so divide 34 by 2 and you get 17. Though not mentioned in canon this implies that Catherine may also have attended the Army Navy Academy aged 16-18 as a 'High School' student and joined the Navy directly at 18 years of age by going to Annapolis.

June 1995:

1, Steve graduates the Army Navy Academy and goes to Annapolis in August/September 1995 as a Navy cadet*, either a Midshipman** or Warrant Officer 1*** (WO1).

* The USAF and Army have _ranks_; the correct title for the Navy is _ratings_.

** I admit at this point to being completely bewildered. An enlisted man can work his way up from Seaman Recruit (SR, Pay grade E1) to Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy (MCPON E9 Special). However, a MCPON is _not_ an "officer" but an enlisted man. If an enlisted man wishes to become an officer, he can do so but there is a process which means they (initially) take a "hit" in terms of rank and pay – A Petty Officer 1st Class who wanted to become an officer would have to start at the lowest rank of officer and pay grade (WO1***) and work his way up the officer ranks as he had done the enlisted, which in practice means a considerable demotion in rank and pay for some time.

A person wishing to enter the U.S. Military or Law Enforcement Organisation (LEO) such as a State Police Department, FBI, etc., at officer rank _without_ 'enlisting' and working through enlisted ranks first can do so by attending an _Officer Candidate School_ or academy and graduating as an officer. This requires completion of a Degree level education.

As I thought it went, Steve is Lt. Cmdr. McGarrett as of S1:1, so he had to have applied and been accepted to attend Annapolis as an _OCS _student rather than _enlisting_ in the U.S. Navy to attend Annapolis when he graduated the Army Navy Academy (High School). Each of the U.S. military services is permitted by the Constitution to have _one_ national academy. The Army has West Point, and the Navy has Annapolis, and the USAF has Colorado. The Coast Guard, Air Guard, etc., have their own.

Both 'Anon' and softballchic34 reviewed and said that Steve would have been a midshipman for four years at Annapolis (1995-1999) and then received a commission in the Navy as an ensign, an officer in the Navy. However, I thought that going the OCS route meant you got to avoid having to do that and you could graduate three or two years instead of four? If he graduated in 1999 as an Ensign rather than a WO1, could he have applied for BUD/S in 2000 (as we saw in flashback in S3)? Does a man have to have so much active service before he can apply for BUD/S or can he go right, Annapolis, where's the application form? Anyone who can clarify, please let me know.

*** As of 2013, the lowest officer rank of WO1 is no longer used and officer ranks now start at Chief Warrant Officer 2. However I believe this rank was still extant until about 2002, so Steve would have started as a WO1 in 1999?

1996:

1, Danny joins the Academy. The NJ State Police Academy (founded 1921) is in Sea Girt, NJ. If I understand correctly, the local PDs take recruits from the academy.

2, Catherine Rollins graduates the Army Navy Academy in San Diego (?) and joins the U.S. Navy presumably as an Officer Candidate like Steve – she goes into Naval Intelligence and at some point she encounters at SEAL Team Three and starts a relationship with Billy Harrington.

1998:

1, John McGarrett apparently steps down as head of OCU but remains in HPD; it is not known whether Jack knew Doris was really alive by that point or not – since Joe clearly knew and John was his friend and an experienced investigator, it is unlikely that Jack did not realise Doris was still alive. He may even have sent his children away in 1992 because he realised or was told that Doris had faked her own death – he may even have been in on the plot from the beginning and been ready beforehand with the false "drunk driver" story to tell Steve, Mary and Chin Ho. In S2:1 Hideki Mokoto tells Steve that "everything your father did he did for his family" – this could be a reference to the fact that John and Doris felt they had no choice but to fake Doris's death when they discovered the Yakuza plot (see also 7th May 2012, re S2:19).

2, Kono is 16 and has had a successful child pro-surfing prodigy career – she is a junior Olympian and is gearing up for a pro-sports career and the main Olympics when she suffers a serious knee injury and can no longer pro-surf. Her rehab is covered by her mentor Ian Adams, co-CEO of Coral Prince Surfing, and is a very long process – it is implied that it took several years of therapies and stated in S1 that she needed at least 2 surgeries on her knee.

During this period she presumably is able to live off the large amount she would have earned as a child professional from sponsorships, TV advertising, fashion modelling (?) It is implied in S1:11 _Palakeiko _in the honeymoon suite that Kono could afford a European honeymoon ('Prague or Vienna or somewhere with cobbles') but that she lives in a very tiny cheap apartment because she conserving her greatly reduced savings.

3, Danny graduates from NJ SP* Academy. If he has a previous training officer it is unknown but until 2000 his Training Officer and first partner is Rick Peterson (S2:15).

* What areas of New Jersey Danny serves in are unknown but the most likely place from 1998 to November 2000 is Weehawken, I think?

On 9/11 when Grace Tilwell is killed they are in Newark PD, the seat of Essex County, but from where you could easily see the World Trade Center. Danny's blue-collar mannerisms and references seem to suggest he is native to Hudson County (which is next to Essex County and is on the river coast separating New Jersey from New York).

In November 2002 he is in Hoboken PD (S1:13 _Ke Kinohi_) which is in Hudson County. Rick Peterson was jailed in March 2001. The concept of "brotherhood" in the US Police means that Danny would not have been able, or wanted to anyway, remain in the PD where he and Rick were before Rick was arrested (probably about November 2000, see below); likewise Grace Tilwell's murder caused him such grief that he likely requested a transfer in October 2001 from Newark – since he went to Hoboken by 2002, it is highly unlikely his transfer there was going back to his original PD (where he was with Rick Peterson); which eliminates both Newark (past) and Hoboken (future).

Trenton and Camden are both too far South and West to be contenders; Weehawken, which I am sure Danny referenced at some point in S1 is between Hoboken and Union City (also in Hudson County), but to my knowledge Danny has never mentioned Union City or North Bergen or East Orange or Jersey City. I don't recognise the postcard cityscape Danny puts above the sun visor in S1:4, so on the balance of probability, the logical place for him to have been in the PD from 1998-2000 was Weehawken.

4, circa 1998 Michael Noshimuri is jailed for murder (in Japan, not Hawaii) released 2013.

**Update February 2014:**

May 1999:

1, Steve graduates OCS Annapolis as a WO1 or an Ensign and applies (and is accepted) in Naval Intelligence, possibly because of his "late" mother's CIA work or his dad's Vietnam role as a Lt. U.S. Navy.

He meets Catherine Rollins; it is revealed to Danny (S1) that Steve's "Smooth Dog" nickname is ironic, i.e., like calling a fat person "Slim" or bald man "Curly". Apparently Steve and Catherine do not begin dating each other at this time, as the way it is told to Danny, when Catherine and Steve first met her response to Steve's far from smooth approach was to laugh herself silly.

There is more ambiguity here - given Steve's youth, maleness and gung-ho approach, Catherine was probably far too sensible to get entangled with him at that point especially as the S1 Catherine Rollins and Steve McGarrett are both clearly more in love with their career than each other. However, she does eventually begin a relationship with Steve's SEAL teammate Billy Harrington; the way I 'read it' she and Billy dated first, then she and Steve had recently moved from friendship to a relationship in 2009 going by Freddie Hart's words to Steve in the plane en route to North Korea (S3:20).

Mid-1999:

Chin Ho Kelly's father is murdered* (S4:13) and as a result he meets Dr. Malia Waincroft – there is nothing in canon respecting this but in S4:13 HPD IA, apparently not having learned their lesson from Det. Kaleo _et al_, is haranguing Chin about his father's murder and about his relationship with Malia which suggests Chin's father was alive at the time when Chin met and started dating/courting Malia as there would be no point bringing Malia into anything to do with Chin's father if the two never met, etc.

* I do have to wonder about having a second of the four core cast members in the show suffer a murdered father. Something a bit more original could have been thought of, surely? We've already got Steve _and _Wo Fat both doing the _Inigo Montoya_ riff from _Princess Bride_ – you killed my father, prepare to die.

Presumed to be 1999:

Rachel ? arranges a fender-bender to meet Danny.

Logically they marry in early 2000, and were married about 15-16 months when they conceive Grace (see 2001).

Rick Peterson was jailed in March 2001 (S2:15), and given that he was a serving police officer, the need to arrest, arraign, subpoena reluctant witnesses (e.g., Danny) and have the trial over a period of weeks means that he was probably arrested in early November 2000 to give time for all that to happen.

Given Danny's integrity, loyalty to friendship/platonic spouse relationship, and sense of duty and honour, it is highly unlikely that he would be indulging in romancing a woman whilst his professional life was unravelling around him in highly stressful and distressing circumstances.

Since there is not enough time between Rick Peterson's conviction in March 2001 and Grace Williams' being conceived in June for Danny and Rachel to meet, court and marry (at least not if they had any common sense) logically Danny and Rachel were in a committed, stable relationship (i.e., marriage) before November 2000 when Rick Peterson was most probably arrested.

Christmas 1999 or New Year 2000:

Steve applies to attend Basic Underwater Demolition/SEALs (BUD/S) Training to become a U.S. Navy SEAL and is accepted for the 234 Class of 2000 (S3:20 _Olelo Pa'a)_.

By this time Steve is either an Ensign or a Chief Warrant Officer 2 (CWO2) grade. In the US military, the higher the rank achieved, the faster up the ranks the person is supposed to move, because at that point a person is expected to demonstrate intelligence, discernment, leadership, common sense, etc. Only serious failings in an officer's attitude, conduct or service are supposed to delay rank progression.

Since in 2010 Steve is a Lt. Cmdr. rank, and he has been a SEAL since 2000, he should have progressed rapidly through the ranks as an active duty SEAL has plenty of scope for promotion-achieving heroism (or insanity, depending on your viewpoint).

There are only 4 ranks from Ensign to Lt. Cmdr. inclusive, and so in brief period (1999-2000) he was in Naval Intelligence he probably only moved up one grade from Ensign to CWO if he moved up a grade at all. That gives Steve plenty of scope to shoot up through 7 or 8 ranks in 10 years (2000-2010). CWO5 rank was introduced in 2002 but Steve would still have been below CWO4 at that point so would have gone through that rank. In 2010 Catherine Rollins is Lt. rank and Billy Harrington, Steve's SEAL Team Three mate is Lt. Cmdr.; Catherine's rank presumably is because she is in Naval Intelligence so hasn't had the chance to pull off flashy routines like the SEALs that get you noticed and promoted (assuming you survive your showing off).

Although Steve transferred to the Reserves in 2010, his work in the Taskforce means he should have been promoted at least once either fully or 'honorary' by 2013. In 2014 at the latest his rank should go up to full Cmdr. rank. Because Catherine Rollins decided to retire from the Navy in 2013, her rank remains Lt, but otherwise she also should have been promoted to Lt. Cmdr. by 2014 at the latest.

© 2014 All applicable parts

The Cat's Whiskers

Continued in Chapter 3…


	3. 2000 to 2010

**This is a timeline/chronology of characters and events for the Hawaii 5-0 (2010) reboot. **

**Chapter 3:**

**2000 to 2010**

C.2000:

1, Probably mid-Spring, about April 2000, Rachel and Danny marry.

2, Rick Peterson's drug abuse and thievery are exposed and he is arrested, probably about November 2000.

3, Steve attends BUD/S Class 234 of 2000* at Coronado, Los Angeles, CA.

* Happily for the fan fic writer who craves detailed accuracy, there was a 6 episode mini-series documentary on the C/234 on Discovery Channel. If you go to cosmolearning dot com forward slash documentaries forward slash us-navy-seals-class-234-training-656 you can watch the episodes and a brief description online. In real life there were 1500 applicants, 83 classmen, and 32 graduated as SEALs.

In canon, the Class of 234 training Commanding Officer was Lt. Cmdr. Joe White**, and includes as successful graduates: Steven J. McGarrett, his swim buddy Frederick "Freddie" Hart, Nicholas "Bullfrog" Taylor and William "Billy" Harrington, who at some point pre circa 2006-8 is in a serious relationship with Catherine Rollins. Steve is assigned to SEAL Team Three as are Nick, Billy and Freddie. By January 2014, Steve is the only one of these four still alive – Freddie is killed first in summer 2010, Steve kills Nick in 2011 and Billy is murdered in October 2013 (S4:5).

** Sometime after 2000 and before 2011, Joe is promoted from Lt. Cmdr. to full Cmdr. rank.

4, In 2000 Mary and Steve speak to each other (presumably by phone) for the last time for 10 years (S1:13 _Ke Kinohi_) – they do not meet or speak to each other again until 11th October 2010 (S1:11 _Palakeiko_)

2000 – 2008:

At some point between 2000 to 2008 Steve meets Samuel Hanna, Senior Chief Petty Officer of Team…Five, I think in NCIS:LA mythology (?). At some point before 2009 his SEAL teammate Billy Harrington and Naval Intelligence friend Catherine Rollins end their relationship and Steve and Catherine begin a long-distance romance.

March 2001:

Rick Peterson is jailed for 10 years for corruption, drug trafficking, theft & etc, he has a wife and son, Cody Peterson, who is 10 years old. By 2012 (S2:15) these have divorced and disowned Rick Peterson.

April 2001:

Danny presumably transfers from Weehawken PD (?) to Newark PD, where he encounters Detective Grace Tilwell*; she accepts him as the (junior) partner as she is the older, more experienced cop.

* (S2:15) Grace Tilwell is shown to be a female version of Steve McGarrett – she drives Danny's car, is gung-ho and enthusiastically shoot-em-up, and as the senior partner gets Danny to do their paperwork. She also doesn't do back-up – as the senior partner it is her responsibility to inform Newark PD of where they are going on their drug investigation but she doesn't log the call out and this contributes to her death as no other officers know where they are when they are attacked by the drug smugglers in the warehouse in Newark.

June 2001:

Grace Williams is conceived (see 9/11)

11th September 2001:

Grace Tilwell is murdered a few seconds before the Twin Tower attacks, which inadvertently save Danny's life and enable him to kill Grace's murderers a minute or so later.

Earlier that morning, Danny's tells Grace he has the first scan of his and Rachel's imminent baby daughter (then unnamed). Generally the first pre-natal foetal scan takes places between 10-14 weeks, usually at 12 weeks' gestation, so 12 weeks' prior to 11th September is about 19th June.

There is a time gap of a day at this point. In flashback (S2:15) we see a battered Danny stumble out of the warehouse, as the emergency services go past.

Since it is inconceivable he would have left Grace "alone" in the warehouse surrounded by the corpses of her killers, and he would not have had any response to ambulance or police assistance calls due to the Twin Towers, it is likely that he carried Grace bodily to the nearest hospital and then went into New York before returning to the hospital at the end of the day and staying with Grace's body until her family came.

He likely did not get home or more likely called Rachel to come and collect him from the hospital around dawn of 12th September 2001. This is unknown as he never mentions it.

It is possible that if his older sister's husband was a fireman like their father before retirement, that Eric's father was killed on 9/11, but this is never specified.

**Update February 2014:**

October 2001:

Danny probably transfers from Newark to Hoboken grief-stricken after losing Grace Tilwell. He is Hoboken at Halloween 2002 (S1:13). At some point between 2003 and 2009, Danny transfers back again to Newark PD - Mari217 provided 2 clear references in S1 where Danny is wearing the uniform of Newark PD, i.e., Kono's personal 5-0 graduation (S1:2) and Meka's funeral (S1:9). His likely work locations are:

Graduation 1998 to Rick Peterson arrest November 2000 – Weehawken PD most likely

December 2000 to 9/11 2001 – Newark PD (fresh start, different county – Essex not Hudson)

October 2001 to after Halloween 2002) Hoboken PD

Between 2003 and early 2009, back to Newark* PD

c. 1st March 2010 to c.30th September 2010, Honolulu PD

c. 30th September 2010 to present – Hawaii 5-0 Taskforce

* We know Danny is good with dogs (unlike Steve) and in January 2014 I read a nice one-shot on AO3 which had as the story that after Grace Tilwell's murder, Danny transferred to the K9 Unit in New Jersey and trained as a dog handler, becoming one of the best K9 handlers in the state before relocating to Hawaii. It was something I never thought of, but is certainly extremely plausible. The larger the dog, the more intelligent and Danny seems to have an affinity for canines (and on the DVD boxsets someone's pet dog kept loping into shot!). On top of that, we know Danny is a loyal friend, the ultimate Platonic Spouse – yet the only two previous cop partners he has _voluntarily_ mentioned talked about are Meka Hanamoa and Grace Tilwell (Rick Peterson is revealed by circumstance). Plausibly, if Danny was asked to or agreed to go back to Newark PD in the K9 unit, this would help him avoid having to deal with a human partner who "wasn't Grace Tilwell" and help any prospective partner from having to endure constant comparisons with the partner made a paragon by virtue of death.

2002:

1, C. 1st week of April 2002 – Grace Williams is born.

2, Halloween 2002 Danny is hit/attacked with a stun gun in Hoboken in circumstances he never describes (is this also when he is left with claustrophobia, which may be why he never talks about it and brushes it off with 'long story').

2, c.2002, John retires from HPD.

3, Kono's period of rehab and surgeries is finally completed and she is able to return to work. Presumably she continues to work in various non-sport jobs whilst she considers her future direction.

c. 2002*:

Hideki Mokoto, an extremely wealthy Japanese businessman and a veteran of Pearl Harbour, relocates to Hawaii. (S2:1).

* Logically Hideki was the 1992 postcard writer; it is likely he would have been shocked and enraged by the murder of Doris by the Yakuza in 1992 and would probably have redoubled his efforts to help Jack wreak as much havoc as possible. However, he would have realised the need to relocate eventually. Leaving Japan immediately after the car bomb would have aroused suspicion, but if John let him know he was retiring, he could have a closer involvement in his and Jack's ongoing investigations if he moved to Hawaii, and by then there would be no suspicion on him if he did so.

c.2003 – 2008:

Danny transfers back to Newark PD

2004: Meka Hanamoa and his wife Amy have their son, William (Billy).

c. 2006:

1, Nick "Bullfrog" Taylor leaves SEAL Team 3 for private sector military work – professional soldier/mercenary. He is extremely cynical and is eventually corrupted and embittered by his own anger at seeing the wealthy and powerful corrupt and evil reap the rewards of his fellow servicemen's great sacrifices.

2, Danny and Rachel's marriage is in gradual decline

3, Patricia Jameson is elected for her first term as Governor of Hawaii (in canon) and her Lt. Governor is Samuel Denning (in canon)

2007:

1, HPD Narcotics break a major Yakuza drug trafficking ring delivery and $28 million USD in drug money is stored in the Asset Forfeiture "locker" vault directly under HPD central precinct – Chin tells Steve and Danny this in S1:12. Frank Delano et al later blow up the HPD central precinct to steal the money (S2).

2, Keako (Kelly?), a decorated veteran police officer is turned down for a loan/grant by HPD despite over 20 years' exemplary service. It is possible that the turn down was to do with the murder of Keako's (?) brother (Chin's father) in 1999? (S4:13). Entirely justifiably he steals the money he is morally owed anyway - $200,000 - from the Asset Seizure/Forfeiture vault directly under HPD central precinct to buy his wife, Mele, a new black market kidney (S1:12), which saves her and gives her another 4 years of life (d.2011).

3, Det. Cage of HPD (in S1 he is a Sergeant rank but his rank before is not stated) of IA is convinced Chin stole the money and makes some many problems that Chin resigns from HPD to protect his uncle, who morally was in the right. He ends his engagement to Malia Waincroft to protect her reputation; his family including Sid Liufau side with HPD, or at the least are too afraid to publicly back him* – only Kono believes in his innocence.

* Again possibly the murder of his father who was likely a police officer may influence their fear of the same thing happening if they support Chin Ho, and also by this time the endemic corruption at the HPD is so obvious that most honourable officers are far too wary to trust anyone, especially their fellow officers.

4, Probably at this time, Kono decides to become a cop, probably with an idea of restoring Chin's reputation.

5, Chin finds work as a "mall rent-a-cop" on the North Shore/seafront tourist traps.

6, Billy Harrington and Catherine Rollins split up. I picked 2007 rather than 2008 because adults with emotional maturity and common sense do not simply jump from one relationship to another like rabbits on steroids. It is likely that both of them were single for quite some time afterwards and that Catherine put a lot of thought into agreeing to Steve's overtures given she'd already had one serious relationship with a fellow Naval officer (and SEAL) that hadn't worked out.

c.2008:

Rachel and Danny divorce

2008:

Steve is tapped up by senior commanders to capture arms/dealer/terrorist brothers Anton and Victor Hesse; he is told to pick one teammate, two at the moment, for a long-term mission to track and capture, but kill if necessary, the Hesse brothers. He picks his SEAL team swim buddy Freddie Hart, as Bullfrog is now a civilian and Billy Harrington is transferring* to Naval Intelligence.

* The last mission that Billy is aware of for Steve was the 'extraction from North Korea' which Billy belatedly realises is the one that resulted in John McGarrett's murder (S4:2), so he must have left SEAL Team Three about 2008.

2008 or 2009:

1, Rachel marries Stanley Edwards

2, Steve and Catherine's relationship solidifies

2009:

1, Freddie and Steve are closing in on the Hesse brothers

2, Before 29th Oct 2009: Hideki Mokoto hires Jack to investigate corruption in the HPD; Jack sets up a hidden camera in Pat Jameson's office which records meetings there – in S2:1 this camera card (hidden in a locker on Molokai) proves Steve didn't murder Pat Jameson. When Danny is viewing earlier footage* it shows Jack McGarrett meeting Pat Jameson and Wo Fat about "Shelburne" and shaking hands with Wo Fat in a clip date stamped: 10/29/2009. (In the US the month is listed first then the day, not day, month, year as in the UK).

* Wo Fat told Steve not to look into his family's past as he wouldn't like what he would find (S1:19). In S2:1 Steve gets upset about the footage** of Jack meeting Wo Fat and Jameson on 29th October 2009, wondering about his father's honour and integrity.

** This is a continuity/plot mistake because we have already seen that Jack himself set up the surveillance camera in the first place, so _he_ _alone_ knew that he was being visually recorded on the date stamp Danny shows Steve at the end of S2:1 (10/29/2009). If Jack was bad, it is unlikely he would have knowingly recorded evidence of it on the secret camera in Pat Jameson's office or if so, would have destroyed that footage.

By 2009:

Jack McGarrett is making serious inroads on Wo Fat's operations, believing that there is widespread and high level corruption in HPD, but he does not know that as well as high-ranking HPD corruption, Hawaii CIA Field Office Director Glenn Kendricks is a long-standing traitor who has betrayed his country and his own subordinates (including Joshua Hirsch, fiancé of Jenna Kaye) to his "asset"/stooge Wo Fat, terrorist and crime boss. (In S2:10, the fact that Joshua Hirsch's soft tissue is still mostly intact even in North Korea, a hot and humid country, when Jenna digs the pin out of his corpse's knee to free Steve, shows that Wo Fat had held Josh prisoner alive until just a few days before - November 2011).

As well as Josh and his team, and Jenna Kaye by instigation, Kendricks also uses the Yakuza as pawns to murder his own agent Anna Douglas (Danny inherits her dog, Kono having previously adopted the Pomeranian owned by the slavery ring woman in S1:5). In respect of Doris McGarrett and Kendricks, see below (2012).

c. august 2009:

Rachel, Stanley and Grace* relocate to Hawaii.

* Since no sane family would move home during the period from Thanksgiving (November) to New Year (January) or during the middle of a child's school year, it is most logical that Grace was taken to Hawaii in the late summer (August) of 2009 so she could start her new Hawaii School (Academy of the Sacred Heart) in the fall (autumn) semester (term) of September 2009. Danny would follow as soon as reasonably possible.

c. October 2009:

Danny relocates to Hawaii. When Danny meets Steve (S1:1) he has been a detective with HPD for six months (March 2010 start) but obviously Danny did not land at Honolulu airport, drive to HPD and start his first shift with the clothes on his back and trundling a suitcase behind him.

To give sufficient time for Danny to arrange his affairs in NJ, travel to Hawaii, find and rent the rattrap hovel we see in the pilot, transfer to HPD, have his orientation/induction with HPD, start the job, meet Meka, etc., would all have taken at least 12 weeks before March 2010 which is January 2010 or Christmas 2009.

Since bureaucracy is inefficient and slow everywhere, it probably took from October 2009 to February 2010 for HPD to process the transfer paperwork, so the start date for Danny's first official HPD shift was around 1st March 2010.

Since he wouldn't get his first (March) salary until the end of March, Danny being unemployed from October 2009 to March 2010 on Oahu (the most expensive of the Hawaiian islands to live) and presumably without any income (at least legal income) during that time explains the desperate hovel we see in the pilot episode and throughout S1. Danny may not necessarily be poor, but he is far too responsible a father to be wasting money on "pretty" surroundings rather than spend it on the people he loves – Grace, and his friends, Chin, Steve, Kono, etc.

1st March – 31st August 2010:

Danny is partnered for 5 months' with Meka Hanamoa, a native Hawaiian detective with wife Amy and son Billy (who is about 6 years old). For unknown reasons – it is implied outside interference from corrupt superior officers – Danny and Meka's partnership is ended about 3 weeks before Jack McGarrett is murdered on 20th September.

August 2010:

Freddie Hart marries his long-term partner Kelly ? just before the fatal mission to North Korea because she is pregnant with their unnamed posthumous daughter (b.2011). They capture Anton Hesse but Freddie is fatally wounded and stays behind to give Steve escape time.

20th September 2010:

Victor Hesse gains entry to 2727 Piikoi St and ambushes John McGarrett, who realises Hesse's real orders are from Wo Fat to murder him and make it look like a home invasion robbery gone wrong, and that Steve being with Anton is just a coincidence (from Wo Fat's viewpoint). John clues Steve in on the "champ" box aware that Steve will figure it out as he knows that HPD corruption means no officers will arrive in time to disturb Hesse and save him.

Victor's own botched rescue attempt kills Anton – this is the "event zero" where everything starts to go wrong for Wo Fat and turned him from a CIA asset to a liability to get rid of (S2:22).

For the fan fic writer, there is good material here because as anyone who works in customer service industries will tell you, "perception is reality" – what a person believes to be so is what they view as "reality". The Hesse brothers perceived Wo Fat as a profitable return business customer/associate, whereas WoFat viewed them as hirelings/ minions/ disposable pawns. In Wo Fat's mind he ordered Victor Hesse to kill Jack McGarrett and had no care of Anton Hesse's capture by Navy SEALs. In Victor's mind Wo Fat was just another customer who hired him to murder John McGarrett and believed that the "luck" of him being the father of his brother's captor Steve McGarrett gave him unconquerable leverage in getting Anton free.

c. 30th September 2010:

Steve takes emergency leave from SEAL Team 3 and comes to Oahu for the funeral. He is approached by Pat Jameson, up for re-election and who wins a second term as Governor until 2014.

11th October 2010:

Steve picks Mary up from Honolulu airport. It is the first time they have seen each other since April 1992 (S1:4), and the first time they have spoken since 2000 (S1:13)

c.7th November 2010:

Danny's former HPD partner Meka Hanamoa, investigating corruption in HPD as Jack did, is murdered by Det. Kaleo, a corrupt HPD officer in the pay, ultimately, of Wo Fat and his paymaster Glenn Kendricks. (S1:8, S2:22)

c.15th November 2010:

Nick Taylor is killed by Steve when he persists in trying to murder General Pak, even though it means killing Steve and 5-0 in the process. (S1:9)

c.30th November 2010:

Steve takes Chin into his confidence* about the Champ Toolbox, as Chin was his dad's HPD partner. Steve shows Chin the small golden key, the postcards from Japan, the locker key (S2:1), maps of Japan and photos of a car bomb. Chin recognises a number M123750 as a case file number. At the end of the case Chin tells Steve the case was opened as a homicide investigation on 19th April 1992, the date of Doris McGarrett's car "accident".

* After Steve is stunned and the toolbox stolen (S1:13) Steve calls Danny, Kono and Chin (this is when Danny gives Steve an ice pack and tells him to stop being a tough guy and reveals to Kono he was attacked with a stun gun in "Hoboken, Halloween 2002"). In the opening teaser Steve adamantly declares that he has told only 5-0 about the toolbox, but that must have been an OSE – Off-Screen-Event. On screen, Steve only told Chin, not Danny or Kono (S1:11) when they were alone in Steve's house. Likewise, when Chin told Steve about the murder case being opened – the two men were alone, Danny and Kono weren't there. Earlier (S1:11) Steve tells Danny that his mother was killed in a car accident by a drunk driver, and at that point that is what Steve, Mary, Chin, Danny and Kono all believe. So if by S1:13 Danny and Kono also know that Doris was murdered, Steve and/or Chin had to have told them unseen by the viewers.

© 2014

All applicable parts

The Cat's Whiskers

Continued in Chapter 4…


	4. 2011 to 2012

**This is a timeline/chronology of characters and events for the Hawaii 5-0 (2010) reboot. **

**Chapter 4:**

**2011 to 2012**

New Year 2011:

(S1:13) Hiro Noshimuri steals the Champ toolbox and trashes it and its contents, although he leaves his fingerprints on the box when he tosses it into a skip outside a Yakuza bar. Hiro's men have kidnapped Mary, but Steve and Danny rescue her before they can murder her. Wo Fat kills Koji Noshimuri who planted the bomb under Jack's car in 1992, but it is too late as he is exposed as a terrorist/murderer of Steve's parents. Wo Fat comes into the café and warns Steve not to go digging into his family's past.

c.23rd January 2011:

After Sam Hale, a Coast Guard Commander robbed of his pension by the State of Hawaii, hatches a plot to steal the $28 million in the asset forfeiture locker (S1:15) – again, morally entirely justified, although the show has Steve making a speech about "your country owes you nothing"* – 5-0 expect to be destroyed but an unknown person has put the $10 million they destroyed back into the locker.

They are unsure who – Pat Jameson? That could be possible if she was investigating Wo Fat on her own or if she was in league with Wo Fat (see below, Pat Jameson, Villain or Victim?). It could also be Wo Fat or Glenn Kendricks playing a long game, or – possibly – Hideki Mokoto, who has been living on the island but as yet is unknown to Steve. Wheelchair bound or not, Mokoto is a very wealthy and therefore powerful man. If Jameson discovered the missing $10 million she would realise instantly what Steve & the others had done to save Chin Ho (S1:12), and if she was innocent of involvement with Wo Fat, she would probably have realised that Jack had some involvement with Mokoto and gone to Mokoto for help in protecting them. In S2:1, Joe White emphasises Mokoto's extreme wealth and powerful connections to Steve, possibly a hint to the viewer that Mokoto had put the $10 million back into the forfeiture locker.

* Wrong – your country owes you everything. In real life, my cousin, a police officer, once told me, "nobody ever gets the police force they want, but they always get the police force they deserve" – if you cut cops' pay and have their widows and children in penury, what sane person would enter an occupation of service to their community when the bad guys get all the perks and prizes?

Police officers should be able to send their kids to expensive private schools, precincts should be palaces and it should be trashy celebs who earn a pittance not people we demand protect us by dying themselves if necessary. Sorry, soap box moment over, but that bit of the episode really grated on me – the real criminals were the State legislators who betrayed Sam Hale just as I didn't really buy Matt Williams as the bad guy – the real criminals were the bankers who gave the orders, so why wasn't Kipton going all out after the sharks instead of pinning all the rap on a minnow? Maybe he was getting some perks like guaranteed promotion, etc., for finding a fall guy the Feds could jail/throw to the taxpaying public as a scapegoat whilst those really responsible kept their Cayman Islands bank accounts?

The same with Sam Hale – it should have been obvious to Steve from personal experience and witnessing the shameful way the USA discards its injured military veterans that if the State did it to Sam Hale and got away with it, they would do it again – including possibly to him, or Danny, or Chin or Kono, once they were older and reaching mandatory retirement age – since he was in the Navy from age 18, 20 years' service would see Steve forced to retire at age 38, or in 2015!

21st – c.24th February 2011:

Danny's younger brother comes to Hawaii to see him (S1:18) it transpires Matt Williams is being pursued by FBI Agent Edward Kipton – or railroaded by him – for financial fraud (a reference to the 2008 recession caused by Wall Street bankers notably Lehman Brothers). When Danny doesn't tell him what he wants to hear, or because Matt realises that Kipton is corrupt and protecting the real guilty banking bosses by railroading defenceless lower management 'minnows' like himself, Matt flees with a drug cartel. It is apparent from this episode that both Danny's parents are alive and that Danny and Matt are the only two sons of the family and that they have at least two sisters, one of whom, Eric's mother, is older than both of them.

24th February 2011:

Matt Williams flees Hawaii; Danny turns to his ex-wife Rachel, whose marriage is going through a rocky patch, and the two begin an affair – Rachel may or may not have already been pregnant with Charlie "Edwards" at this point, but three months later she believes the baby is Danny's – since 12 weeks is the standard time for the first foetal scan to confirm the baby's pre-natal age, it is more likely that Rachel lied when she later told Danny* (S2) that her pregnancy was more advanced, and that Danny really was the father – but it is not impossible that Stan really is Charlie Edwards' father.

* It is entirely possible that Danny ("I am a detective, ergo I detect") is perfectly aware that he is Charlie's biological father. In my 5-0 story _Finnesse_ (© 2013 The Cat's Whiskers) I have this scenario, but Danny is aware that he cannot be there for Charlie as a parent and that Stan can give both Charlie and Grace financial and social opportunities he cannot.

Since the stable home life and future benefit of his children is the most important thing in his life, he puts them first. Also, fathers do not fall in love with the baby when they see it, as mothers do, but feel a surge of terror and inadequacy. Grace was conceived by two committed parents in a stable relationship, and was a much-wanted child by Danny. Charlie was an unwanted accident conceived in a context of deceit and stress – a baby was the last thing Danny needed, wanted or could afford to have financially or emotionally in his life, so it is hardly surprising that there was no paternal bond there no matter whether Charlie is his biological son or not.

11th April 2011:

Mele Kelly dies and it is finally revealed that Chin Ho was covering for his uncle stealing $200,000 to buy a black market kidney (S1:20).

April 2011:

After turning to Rachel in distress over Matt in February 2011, they began an affair. It has been shown that Rachel and Danny still cared for each other, and that Rachel left him because she could not live with the fear that every day she saw him could be his last day alive (S1:10).

2nd May 2011:

(S1:22,23) Chin confesses to stealing the $200,000 as his uncle Keako, now his wife is safely deceased and cannot be targeted by HPD, comes forward to confess. IA challenge Chin Ho to replace the money, revealing that they have had him under financial surveillance waiting for him to spend the money. Chin gets the money by going to a loan shark, but IA still have the serial numbers of the money and tell Chin* at 5-0 HQ in front of Steve and Danny that they still intend to arrest Keako despite being entirely morally in the wrong, just as they persecuted Chin.

* Personally I think Chin's character should have punched the antagonistic IA man in the face – he was clearly revelling in being a tyrant and persecuting Keako when the HPD were disgraceful in refusing to help Mele Kelly in the first place. But that's just me.

Week of 16th May 2011:

1, Chin Ho Kelly goes back to the HPD with a retrospective promotion (and pay) of Lt.

2, Rachel tells Danny that she and Stan have separated and that she is pregnant and believes the baby is Danny's. Danny agrees to go to New Jersey with Rachel and Grace and to see if they can remarry and work things out.

16th May 2011:

Wo Fat murders Pat Jameson* and frames Steve after Steve ignores Danny's advice and confronts her. Lt Gov. Samuel Denning shuts down 5-0.

Danny cannot bring himself to abandon Steve and so Rachel and Grace go back to New Jersey without him.

The elderly lady on the street positively identifies Kono as the thief** of the $10 million – in a previous episode Chin passes Duke Lukela coming in with the sports bag of $10 million that Hesse burned, but sufficient bills apparently still survive to compare to the asset forfeiture locker and realise that $10 million is not the same $10 million as was seized from the drug bust, so therefore although there is $28 million there, someone stole the "original" $10 million and replaced it with different bills, so they actually have $38 million.

** As far as I can work out – since the show's producers wanted to fracture the team at the end of S1 (although they repeated this at the end of S3 as well) – they needed a way to get Kono out of 5-0, so although all the money is accounted for (at least until Frank Delano blew it up in S2:23) technically a crime of theft has taken place because $10 million of the $28 million is not the same $10 million as was originally recovered in the drugs bust. In real life would a PD have so much time on its hands that it could ignore real crime and focus on pursuing technicalities especially when it was $10 million richer as a result?

* **Pat Jameson**: villain or victim? For the fan fic writer, this can go either way, but my personal view, especially in light of the fact that Glenn Kendricks is a traitor (S2:22) is that Jameson was a victim not a villain, because I think that fits the canon narrative.

Politicians aren't naïve or stupid. It is highly unlikely that Jameson would have given Steve McGarrett "full immunity and means" had she been in league with Wo Fat. I consider there to be 2 key moments. The first is when Steve beards Hiro Noshimuri at the restaurant and afterwards Jameson comes to 5-0. When he claims that Hiro is Yakuza and murdered Doris, I would say Jameson's shock and distress is genuine.

There is in fact a bit of a continuity/plot issue here because why didn't it occur to Steve or at least Chin and Danny, supposedly veteran cops, that Jameson would react to Steve's revelation about Hiro exactly as Mary had reacted about the Champ Toolbox – i.e., start poking around on her own without realising how dangerous that was?

In a way, though he didn't murder her, Steve _was_ indirectly responsible for Jameson's death because when she started looking into things, Wo Fat and certainly Glenn Kendricks would instantly have realised she was a liability, and Steve/5-0 did nothing to warn her or at least monitor her and none of 5-0 seemed to realise that if they had peeled back one layer (Victor Hesse to reveal Hiro Noshimuri) and then a second layer (Hiro Noshimuri to reveal Wo Fat) that there might be even more hidden power players, for both good and evil, they hadn't got to yet?

That should have been obvious to them the instant they found that "X" had covered their asses by depositing $10 million in the asset locker. They didn't discover Jack McGarrett to Hideki Mokoto until S2:1 or Wo Fat to Glenn Kendricks until S2:22. So why did Steve in particular – or at least Cath Rollins, a veteran of the double-dealing Naval Intelligence types – fail to be alert to worse bad guys in the shadows? After all, the real mastermind was Glenn Kendricks - getting rid of a high-ranking cop and a Yakuza Oyuban is one thing, but if Kendricks was not to be exposed as a traitor, the State Governor was a much bigger problem. Wo Fat had to make getting rid of her his priority to protect his and Kendricks' cosy little arrangement.

The second key moment is the moment when Steve demands if Pat Jameson killed Laura* because she was "disloyal" in sending Steve bits and pieces from the toolbox that Hiro supposedly destroyed before discarding the toolbox in the trash. She hesitates and says yes, but the whole way Jean Smart plays the scene is actually a classic "tell" of innocence not guilt.

Earlier in the episode, she appears genuinely shocked and horrified when the car bomb explodes, and again I think that was genuine reaction. In real life neurobiology, no matter what a billion women claim, the human brain cannot multitask. This is an anti-survival trait. The ancient _Homo sapiens/neanderthalis/denisovan/erectus_ concentrating on several different things at once was much less likely to noticing the sabre-tooth sneaking up behind him. The human brain prioritises input and focuses on what it deduces is the most important one.

In that scene, art imitates this real life fact by the way Pat Jameson hesitates, then says "yes" and glances down and away to the right when Steve demands if that was why she had Laura murdered – it is a classic sign of innocence because the brain slams on the brakes of all other thought processes and turns everything to this new, urgent data input (like in _Star Trek: TOS_ when they get the computer to calculate Pi to drive out the evil alien). When Steve makes the demand, Jameson has a moment of clarity and realises that Wo Fat had to have murdered Laura Hills – since she knows as Steve does not – that Wo Fat is in the mansion with her, her brain focuses on this revelation trying to make sense of it – therefore even the man yelling at her with a gun is less of a priority. She realises that Wo Fat has to be much more of a major player in what has been going on since well before 1992 than merely his "cover" as a middle-management subordinate of Hiro Noshimuri.

Unfortunately she doesn't get chance to make use of this new information since Wo Fat stuns Steve and realises that unwittingly Steve has given him the perfect way to follow Glenn Kendricks' orders to murder Jameson and get rid of Steve McGarrett – in one go. Additionally, Jameson did not come out of nowhere to be elected Governor in 2006; she was active in the State administration for at least several years before that – so she would have known Hideki Mokoto socially for a start, and may even have been working on the then Governors' staff from the late 1980s-1990s during the period when Doris was killed – it is implied by her reaction to the revelation about Hiro that Jameson knew both Jack and Doris both socially and well.

Although it is a pure fan fic friendly speculation, I have written it into one of my stories, _Danny Boy _(© 2014 The Cat's Whiskers), that Jack tried to create a Hawaii 5-O (letter not number) Taskforce when he became head of the OCU in c.1988 but that the subtle and successful sabotage clued in him and the then Governor and his staff (including Pat Jameson) of the widespread corruption and criminality in HPD and beyond.

It just seemed to me that Pat Jameson's Taskforce suggestion in S1:1 was a little too well-constructed and thought out to be a desperate re-election gimmick – it was more as if she'd dusted off a pre-existing structure – logically from an underpinning "realism of the 5-0 universe" fan-fiction viewpoint it would make sense that Jack might have come up with the idea – together with Doris most likely – themselves and suggested it to the Governor back in 1988 with the aim of himself, Doris, Duke Lukela, Troy Ookala and Ben Keiko as the Taskforce members. From a plausibility and logic viewpoint, I think it makes far more sense for Jameson to be more victim than accomplice – after all, she would have had to have been psychic to realise what Glenn Kendricks was up to, and nobody else seems to have figured it out.

* It is never explored/explained why Laura Hills is the one sending Steve photos of objects that should have been destroyed. Logically, I think the only person who _could_ have been sending the evidence back to Steve piecemeal is Hiro Noshimuri.

Yes, I know, bear with me on this. Hiro knows that Wo Fat is his boss, not the other way around as others have been led to believe, and Hiro must also know, even if he can't prove it, that Wo Fat has been protected for years by a high-ranking traitor in the US Government, Glenn Kendricks, and possibly even higher up – see Congressman Bowers in S3:14, and on at least 2 occasions Sam Denning has tried to block 5-0 for the sake of political expediency/saving his own skin (S2:16 & S3:14).

When Koji is exposed as the cop who planted the car bomb (S1:13), Hiro knows Wo Fat will have his brother murdered and will also try to get rid of him as well. I think that in revenge for Koji's eventual murder (in that car "accident" in S1:13) and also a pre-emptive attempt to get rid of Wo Fat first, Hiro prudently kept the evidence from the toolbox and used Laura Hills to send it back, bit by bit, to Steve.

Presumably Laura Hills being Oriental (Kelly Hu) by race means Hiro has some family connection to compel her involvement as a courier. Logically, a Yakuza as experienced and high-ranking as Hiro would never be so foolish or so directly involved as to leave his own fingerprints on the champ toolbox, or be so lazy as to get rid of it right outside the bar he owned, rather than dumping it in the ocean where the salt would destroy it. Yet his fingerprints are on the empty champ box Kono spots in the dumpster.

The only reasonable explanation other than stupidity is that Hiro _wanted_ Steve to catch him out because he knew he was on borrowed time with Hesse in jail who would eventually cut a deal with Steve and so Hiro intended to use Steve to get rid of Wo Fat once and for all, or at the least force Kendricks to get rid of Wo Fat. There was no reason for Laura Hills to send back the evidence herself – she had no connection to the McGarrett saga on her own account – and Pat Jameson wouldn't have sent the evidence back had she been a baddie, and Hideki Mokoto wouldn't have stolen it in the first place, which all leaves Hiro Noshimuri as the only logical 'return to sender' unless we posit the existence of yet another "Mr X" whom we haven't encountered yet.

For whatever reason, these plot threads/explanations were never follow up in S2 and S3, possibly because of time factors or because it risked complicating the issue to the extent it was viewed as being best left alone.

16th May 2011:

Rachel Edwards and Grace fly back from Honolulu to New Jersey, presumably staying with or near Danny Williams' parents and sisters.

They do not return to Hawaii until October 2011 (see below).

Teilor Grubbs appears as Grace for the first time in S2:7 broadcast 31.10.11 – since the episodes seem to return to the seasonal synchronicity, i.e., S2:7 is a Halloween themed episode in line with the transmission date of 31st October, we must assume that after S2:2 and before S2:3 there are "never shown cases" which pushes back the occurrence of events in the aired episodes so that they match up with the time of year they were broadcast rather than the time of the events portrayed in them. This is because according to S2:1 the action is taking place in June 2011 only two to three weeks after Jameson's murder (not 3½ months later in September when S2:1 was broadcast), yet the events of S2:7 clearly take place at Halloween 2011, which is when it was broadcast.

So approximately:

S2:1 – transmitted 19.09.11, but events take place 3½ months earlier in early June 2011

S2:2 – transmitted 26.09.11, but events take place 3½ months earlier in mid-June 2011 – within a week of reinstating 5-0 Denning forces Lori Weston on them as a monitor/babysitter/snitch (see below)

The unknown/not shown cases must range from mid-June 2011 until 1st October 2011 (3½ months again) because S2:3 aired 03.10.11. It is not until S2:5 broadcast 17.10.11 that we get to the meat of Capt. Fryer and Kono's suspension –but this very realistic. In real life it would take several months for Delano to believe in Kono's _bona fide_ suspension, and much more believable for Kono to act as if she was on a gradual downward spiral of bitterness and resentment from May 2011 through to October 2011 rather than suddenly "switch" from 5-0 honourable cop to corrupt one in the space of 4 weeks in May-June 2011.

June 2011?:

From what it shows in S2:1 there doesn't seem to be the usual elapse of the summer – S2:1 seems to pick up about 2-3 weeks from where S1 leaves off, although of course the opening scene could be a memorial service for Pat Jameson, rather than her actual funeral.

Intercut with the end of Jameson's funeral we see the first glimpse of Lt. Gov. Sam Denning, who has closed down 5-0 and intends to have Steve tried for her murder as his No.1 priority (understandably) and we also see Chin as a Lt with HPD and in a role reversal Kono is suspended for the theft of the asset forfeiture locker money.

We see Steve, shirtless, doing push-ups, he is clearly in solitary confinement, although this is not a problem – as a US Navy SEAL and fully combat-ready, Steve is by far the most dangerous person in the prison, including Victor Hesse and former Det. Kaleo. He would have no problem wiping the floor with a variety of people all at once.

Danny, however, goes to meet a military transport having, in the intervening period from Jameson's murder, somehow* managed to track down Steve's SEAL Training CO (although this sets up a major bit of character development problem in S3:23), Lt. Cdr Joe White.

* Again, for the fan fic writer there is scope to explore just who – and what – resources Danny Williams can call upon if he needs to. It is like Marty Deeks, originally Martin Brandel, in NCIS: LA.

The big problem, and I think the reason there is friction sometimes between Danny and Steve and most especially up until S4 finale of NCIS:LA between Deeks and Sam Hanna, is that Callen, Sam, Steve, etc., spook/specwar types might have missions that last months, but they always have an escape route, they can always leave that "identity" and the mess that "character" made behind for others to clear up, but cops have no escape, they live all the time in the real world that the "super" heroes can distance themselves from and so have no choice but to be there – they have no luxury of being able to ignore Miranda and laws, even when those laws are badly written (Federal asset seizure law), racist (U.S. drug laws) sexist (U.S. family law) or illegal/ unconstitutional/totalitarian (Patriot Act).

I think a lot of the time super-hero types like Callen, Hanna and McGarrett don't understand this and so understandably their sidekicks like Danny and Deeks get stressed, hurt and worn down – it's just like Xander Harris in _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_, or the Companions/members of UNIT in _Doctor Who_. The greatest hero of BtVS was Xander, because he saved the world just like everyone else but had nothing to fall back on except himself, and like the Companions saved people (including the Doctor) sometimes at the cost of their own lives (e.g., River Song in _Silence in the Library_) but they pulled it off without snazzy sonic screwdrivers or impervious/impenetrable TARDIS gizmos.

Perhaps the classic example is Penelope Wilton as Harriet Jones in _The Stolen Earth_ episode of Doctor Who, where, despite having being deposed by the Doctor as Prime Minister she works on the subwave network to contact him when the Daleks attack. The real hero of the trilogy is Harriet Jones, who was the "bigger man" in helping the Doctor despite his past arrogance destroying her career.

**Update February 2014:**

June 2011:

In S2:1 Danny and Joe meet Chin at 5-0 HQ and Chin and Danny have an argument there in which Chin specifically states that Danny is unemployed*. This indicates that for whatever reason, Danny cannot or will not return to employment with HPD. The context of the argument also shows that Danny has not been in real contact* with Chin (or Kono) since Jameson's murder/Steve's arrest (16th May 2011).

* Again there is fan fic scope here. When Danny first came to Oahu, he probably came with just one suitcase and his firearm, and probably sensibly leased a long term storage locker/mailbox as his first action on leaving the airport. Once he'd taken a look at Oahu rental prices and the fact that Grace was safe in Stan's mansion, someone as tough, resourceful and capable of self-protection as Danny would have coped with flophouses/sleeping rough to eke out his money until he transferred to HPD, even though that took a while (probably October 2009-March 2010).

Likewise on 17th May 2011 when 5-0 was shut down and he had no salary coming in, Danny had Grace safe back in New Jersey, so again, sleeping rough and soup kitchens for a while would not have bothered him. Although the show highlights the fitness regime of Kono and Steve, it is obvious from context (and the buff bodies of Caan and Kim) that Danny (and Chin) also follow some pretty intense core training – Danny never talks about a lot of things to do with himself (e.g., the claustrophobia) and because wrestling and MMA is held in such high regard in Polynesia, logically he would and could do something like BJJ in a shady but dubiously legal underground fight club "scene" to maintain that fitness without it being an IA issue or having any problems with HPD over it – except a variety of racist cops wanting to go one-on-one in a BJJ bout with the _haole_, yet another reason why he probably keeps it very quiet.

Steve's competitive nature and wanting to spar (or like Sam Hanna with Deeks, take over Danny's fitness regime and opine/nag him to death) and also Danny's insistence that Grace not learn such things would be logical fan fic reasons why Danny would never discuss a lot of his private life with anyone else, including 5-0, even if they are 'family' and Steve is in the '_hoa_'/'Platonic Spouse' role.

So where did Danny live during 2009-2010 and mid-2011? Probably in places like Tent City (that we see in S1:6), or flophouses/shelters or by squatting in pool-houses. It would actually have been fairly easy for Danny to live "roughly" even despite being white if he had stuck to tourist trap areas – beachcombing at night for shampoo, towels, hair product, lost dollar bills, slipping to tables at busy boardwalk/shorefront cafes and finishing off the abandoned lunch of some loud, obnoxious and stressed family group, 'lifting' a coffee or unfinished takeout tray here and there.

As a police officer Danny would know just how to blend in, and how unobservant most people are – he would be just one more red-faced skin-peeling _haole _tourist if any waiter, etc., had time to pay attention to him at all. There is no indication of whether Danny might also have had a PI licence as well, so he might have picked up a bit of work as a bail tracker in May-June 2011 (or even 2009-10) for Dog the Bounty Hunter, whose offices are based in Honolulu. In the episode 3:18 wherein Dog briefly guest-spotted, he shook hands with Steve but Danny wasn't there, and it is unlikely that "Dog" Chapman would break Danny's confidence by mentioning to anyone that he knew Danny or they'd encountered each other previously.

The thing is that we don't think about things that are against our nature. A person who is not a sexual predator or a deviant simply cannot understand the urge to rape or the vileness of paedophilia – its gibberish to us. Likewise it would never have occurred to the other members of 5-0 or anyone around them to think about Danny not having money – Chin was retrospectively paid a fair whack as a Lt. Kono although suspended would have received basic pay, especially with the intimidating Capt Fryer, gruff but good, batting for her, and the Hawaiian taxpayer was funding Steve's* imprisonment. Other people also had _ohana _- and were doubtless so used to the Polynesian connection of 'family' that applied to trusted friends as well as relatives that they forgot all about the fact that Danny had no family/social support network outside 5-0.

Since food, shelter, etc., was never a problem, the thought of being homeless just because they had no income coming in at that point would never occur to them. This notion is backed up – at least for me - in S2:7, at Halloween where Danny tells Steve that he needs to find a new apartment because his old one has been rezoned. But how do we know that's true? How does Steve know? Because that is what Danny has told him is the problem, just like that police officer told Steve in 1992 his mother had been killed in a car accident.

There is no way someone like Danny would upset his friends or want to make them feel bad by admitting his old apartment was repossessed back when he couldn't make rent because of what Steve recklessly did on16th May 2011 and that after probably surviving more rough than not from June to October 2011 (?) he now needs a new apartment because Grace is now back on the islands, Rachel having reconciled with Stan as Charlie is apparently Stan's son.

So a little white lie about rezoning explains away his apartment search and the gross cheap hotel Steve dislikes when they show the "Enemy Mine" clip in the teaser.

* Although it is never mentioned in the show, logically at least Steve and probably his sister Mary have to be very rich. The death of Steven McGarrett in 1941 meant that his widow would have received an annuity, and probably John McGarrett inherited 2727 Piikoi St mortgage free – since the house appears to have been left 50-50 between Steve and Mary, presumably John and Deborah inherited the house 50-50 and Deborah, living happily in LA and with no children to inherit her half-share, deeded the entire house to her brother _gratis_? When Doris "died" in 1992, both children would have received a sum that Jack would have banked for them.

Steve spent his entire adult life never having to make rent, pay a mortgage, fund school fees, pay utility bills and medical insurance or airplane fares, buy furniture, a car, maintain that car, and so forth, whilst having a reasonable annual salary that far outstripped his outgoings as an active duty SEAL. He would have inherited 50% of Jack's estate in 2010.

Logically, Hideki Mokoto – whom we already know was exceptionally wealthy – and who appears to have had no family, would have made Jack his beneficiary out of guilt at Doris's death in 1992, and when Jack was murdered would have made his heirs Jack's two children. When Wo Fat murdered Mokoto in 2011, he was inadvertently giving Steve and Mary a vast fortune.

For example, in Season 1 it is implied that Mary is a bit of a rebel, a social screw-up who has never really "stuck at anything", always leaving before she can be left – for very understandable reasons. Yet in S1:13 Marys rental home is a spacious bungalow with a panoramic view in a desirable part of Oahu. How was she paying the bill? Possibly via the Bank of Aunt Deb? Likewise when she "adopts" Joan, what could persuade the California authorities that a single woman of dubious moral reputation and previous arrest issues was suitable to adopt a baby over a stable, married, law-abiding couple? Perhaps that she had money? (It is far more likely that Joan is Mary's biological daughter and she is hiding the ID of the father for reasons of her own).

There is of course the tricked out truck Steve has, the vast amounts of ammunition Steve gets through (does he subsidise 5-0 rather than the Governor?) and the better than average Camaro Danny gets twice – once when Steve trashes his Mustang in S1:1 and when Steve is indirectly responsible for the fact that the NLM kills "Winifred" in S4:1.

All indicate that perhaps Steve is using his own money rather than going to Denning for some stuff. Additionally in S4 when Mary "adopts" Joan, we previously have her as the private nurse to Morty Sapperstein, an elderly, retired and very wealthy Jewish-American businessman whose wife and only child are long-deceased and who was instrumental in persuading Mary to achieve a rapprochement with Doris. If Mokoto left his entire fortune to Steve, Sapperstein likely left his to Mary? Finally there is Deborah McGarrett, who we discover in November 2013 is an 80 year old childless spinster terminally ill – so in 2014, presumably Steve and Mary are going to inherit yet another 50-50 share of Deb's estate and since she has clearly been an intelligent go-getter all her life but never had to fork out for school fees, divorce lawyers/husband funeral and the like, her income has probably always been greater than her outgoings.

June 2011:

Steve escapes from jail, Wo Fat murders Hesse, 5-0 re-instated. There are a couple of plot issues I thought about with S2:1. After Danny takes Joe White to visit Steve, we get the scene where the guard lets Steve, in line with solitary confinement protocols, out into the exercise yard – he says "you have one hour" then we see the rifle guard on the wall and the others suddenly disappear and Victor Hesse comes out with a shiv.

I suddenly realised shortly after the episode that the guards had to be _good guards_ not corrupt/bad ones, because the latter didn't make sense.

Yes, I know bear with me. It was like in _Stargate: SG-1_ when I realised the Harsesis child had to be the child of Sha're and Daniel, not Sha're and Apophis' human host. The mythology had clearly established the sarcophagus kept the Goa'uld and human host alive at terrible physiological cost. No way was a 2000 year old Egyptian capable of fathering a baby. But the show mythology also established that the Goa'uld queens could collect and store genetic "bits" of DNA and intercut them for new purposes. Since the S1:1 pilot shows Sha're and Daniel had an active sex life and sperm can survive in a healthy female body for several days so conception may occur hours or days after sex, it was plausible that the Goa'uld queen Amon-het stored Daniel's sperm and used it with Sha're's egg and her own (Apophis') genetic information but genetically the child would be fathered by Daniel.

Likewise in the Hawaii 5-0 mythology, in S1:1 Steve and Freddie Hart have been assigned to go after the Hesse brothers – at that point nobody is aware of Wo Fat's existence at all. The OTT rescue attempt in North Korea was purely Victor, as Wo Fat wouldn't have given a moment's thought to Anton. That shows that Victor had great wealth and considerable international criminal pull.

In S1:12 Victor has enough money that he can watch $10 million burn just to spite Steve, so when he is in Halawa at the end of that episode, Victor has more than enough money to be able to bribe the guards if they were corruptible or have outside thugs bribe/threaten their families, so the guards who deliberately leave a fully fit Navy SEAL on his own in a prison exercise yard he could escape from in about 10 minutes couldn't be corrupt, because if they were Hesse would have been able to escape on his own account months before.

However, Hesse has not become as powerful and rich as he was without being bright. At Christmas 2010 we see Wo Fat visit Hesse in jail wanting to know what Steve knows. At this point, Hesse knows he has a big problem in that Wo Fat eliminates anyone who could lead back to him (which is exactly what Hesse would do).

Eventually Steve McGarrett is going to start coming after Hesse for answers, so Hesse knows that Wo Fat is already moving him from the asset to liability column. The problem Hesse has is that Wo Fat has him nicely caged into a convenient location – his only protection at the moment is the incorruptible guards Wo Fat can't bribe either (see S1 finale).

When Wo Fat frames Steve, Hesse knows he has to act. He and Steve, the two most dangerous people to Wo Fat bar Sang Min (who has escaped) are nicely both together in the same place. Wo Fat is perfectly capable of sending a missile into the prison just to kill the pair of them. In order for Hesse to have a chance of escape and taking out Wo Fat first, either he has to be out of prison or Steve does, causing Wo Fat to have other things to worry about than trying to murder Hesse.

Logically, Victor had to have set the attack on Steve up _with_ the guards' co-operation – I think Hesse went to the guards, who are perfectly well aware of the corruption in HPD and hate it, told them that Steve was innocent and that they were actually helping Wo Fat by keeping Steve locked up, and came up with the plan to help Steve engineer his own escape.

If Hesse could have bribed them to let him go, he'd have done it long before. Hesse even explains a bit of the plan to Danny and Chin when they get to his cell after Steve has been taken off by ambulance – at no point do Danny and/or Chin go after the guards who "let" Steve stay in the exercise yard without anyone watching him, indicating that they have either figured out, or been told by Hesse, that the guards are on their/Steve's side.

Hesse has no interest in anything other than himself so he would only help someone else, particularly Steve, if there was no other option.

In the Season 1 finale, we see Wo Fat walking out of Halawa wearing the prison guard uniform of an L. Fong, again indicating that Wo Fat couldn't bribe the guards to do his dirty work for him but had to get in himself in disguise. Presumably he used the taser gun again – Victor Hesse had excellent combat skills, so no way did he just let Wo Fat slit his throat, but if he looked up and saw Wo Fat in a guard's uniform he probably froze in surprise for a split-second – during which moment Wo Fat tasered him unconscious as he did Steve.

The other niggle was that when Denning reinstated 5-0, he took away the first half – "full immunity" – of the "full immunity and means" that Jameson had given them (although apparently this is back when Lou Grover says that 5-0 have "full immunity and means" in S4:1).

Denning then sicced Lori Weston on them as his inside man. But that just doesn't ring true in terms of plot plausibility. There is no way in "real life" that Steve, never mind Danny and/or Chin, would let a 30-second phone call between the Team Leader and the Governor suffice without getting the "full immunity and means" _in writing_ in some form of _written article(s) of constitution of the Governor's Hawaii Joint Military-Police Taskforce_.

Similarly with the due procedure Danny goes on about – there is no way Danny Williams would be foolish enough, never mind Chin having already been railroaded by IA once – to do half of what 5-0 does unless he had _full immunity_ and _total carte blanche_ in writing – legalised, notarised, framed and possibly cross-stitch framed on his apartment wall.

In my fan-fic I "get round" this by having it that Steve and the team go along with Denning's order, even though he cannot enforce it, in order to keep an "ace up their sleeve" should they ever need it – on the plus side, Denning is ex-military like Steve, and sometimes seems willing to listen, but on the minus side he is far less trustworthy, at least from their perspective, than Jameson was, for all her faults.

June 2011 – 2nd October 2011:

unknown cases that are not shown, this brings the episodes back in sync with the time of year they were broadcast, reflecting the events shown in them, e.g., Halloween, Christmas, etc.

3rd October 2011 & next few days:

SEAL Team 9 are under attack by a drug cartel. Later on Lt Bradley Jacks, PO Chapman and Chief Schulte of Team 9 accompany Joe White, Danny – who again is the one who organised Steve's rescue – etc., to North Korea to rescue Steve (November 11). Officially the SEALs were on vacation elsewhere and Joe White takes the judicial inquiry board "rap" and enforced retirement, but in canon he had to have been near mandatory retirement age anyway.

24th October 2011:

Wo Fat murders Hideki Mokoto and tries to murder Joe White re "Shelburne" – probably Mokoto has changed his will to leave his entire estate to John McGarrett's heirs, so Wo Fat doesn't realise he is making Steve even wealthier than he already was.

Before 31st October 2011:

Grace and Rachel have returned to Hawaii because Rachel and Stan are trying again – Rachel has told Danny that her child is Stan's (though whether this is true is open to question).

I have to state that I didn't like episode 2:7 because the disrespect Danny showed at the _Heiau_ was totally out of character, not only for Danny but also for, at least I would hope, Scott Caan.

Very sadly Caan seems to have been targeted by the rent-an-ism-brigade who pounce on every utterance as being 'offensive' or disrespectful and seem to have influenced the writing of this episode to portray a white Christian character as "of course" being _ipso facto _an insensitive bigot - which is itself racist and bigoted.

One of the things I really struggle with about the 5-0 reboot is the racism against white people – the portrayal that it is not only acceptable but admirable to be racist as long as your victims are white is neither of those things.

Of course, Scott Caan gets paid to spend his days ogling mostly naked bimbos in bikinis so his life is hardly traumatic, but on the other hand he has to spend long periods away from his family working long hours. Constantly being sniped at by professional anti-whatever "campaigners" must make him think why do I bother? It would be their fault if he decided to leave the show.

Unfortunately Political Correctness is the most racist, sexist, phobic, bigoted social, religious and political doctrine in modern history and it infects everything by presenting itself as campaigning against what it itself is – I found it very offensive in the episode where the Korean said to Chin "all you (whites) look alike" because I know if "Danny" [or Scott Caan] had said that, even as a quip, there would have been vilification and outrage and Caan sacked from the show – The Chinese and Japanese routinely call whites "round eyes" and make mocking comparisons to the round-eyed mutant ninja turtles - yet that isn't racist, its "cultural expression"!?

Yet even Steve and Danny's so-called "friends" jeer _haole_ at Danny at every opportunity. Real equality and lack of "ism" infection means that you don't indulge in "Victimology" and you judge each person and each event in context and the facts of what happened, not the sex or skin colour of the perpetrator(s) and victim(s) or ideology of the losers, or rather whom you assume to be one or the other.

The hijacking of the slavery issue in the US is classic example; the innumerable white people kidnapped as slaves from Britain and Europe never seems to come up, nor the fact that they were kidnapped by non-whites, whereas most of the slaves exported to America were not kidnapped from Africa by whites, but sold to them by black Africans of the person's own nationality – not to mention that black Africans in the form of the Mali Empire invaded, conquered and colonised large swathes of central, north and south America five hundred years before it was colonised by white Europeans.

I really didn't like the episode because I felt it was only created to give Robert Englund scenes in which to ham it up and because the lazy writing was unforgivable - the characterisation of Danny as intolerant and prejudiced for no other reason than he was _white, male and Christian _was nonsensical. Males of which religion having been trying for years to take the world back to a primitive peasant society of 1500 years ago by terrorist bombings and mass murder and genocide to force us to embrace racism, misogyny and intellectual stupidity as religious "truths"? Clue: they aren't white and they aren't Christian.

21st November 2011:

Steve doesn't learn apparently, and goes haring off with a Dear John letter to 5-0 and Danny & Co end up having to rescue him from Wo Fat in North Korea. Joe White is forced to retire to Montana, apparently. (NB – for some reason, Hiro Noshimuri becomes Hiro Yoshimuri in Season 2. I've no idea or explanation why as Adam remains Noshimuri).

12th December 2011:

About 12 years after they originally met (1999?) Chin Ho Kelly marries Malia Waincroft. Former IA Captain Vincent Fryer has been promoted to Chief of Detectives.

6th February 2012:

(S2:15) Rick Peterson kidnaps Grace and orders Danny to murder Stan Edwards - we learn that Rick Peterson was convicted in March 2001 and that he was Danny's training officer.

13th February 2012:

At a charity auction Denning warns 5-0 that if they disobey his instructions, Lori Weston will be shipped out and he forces her to resign. Again this raises the plot issue of Denning as a good or bad guy. If 5-0 had obeyed Denning, a foreign national rapist and murderer of an American citizen would have escaped scot-free, yet knowing that he still forces Weston to resign from 5-0 for doing the right thing. Does this mean Denning is a bad guy, or was it just a display of petulance and cutting of his nose to spite his face?

9th April 2012:

Steve yet again abandons the team for Tokyo searching for Shelburne, and so he must have been told in an OSE if he later on "knows" that Max was adopted and that his birth name and parents are unknown.

30th April – 7th May 2012:

Danny meets Callen and Deeks, Steve who already knows Sam Hanna and Kensi Blye, does not and as of Season 4 has not met Deeks and Callen.

7th May 2012:

(S2:22) Yet again this episode niggles at me because it is a huge game-changing plot point that has been utterly ignored ever since. CIA agent Anna Douglas is murdered by the Yakuza, and Danny, who is trying to track Steve, investigates. He is grabbed by a group of men and finds himself facing Hawaii CIA Field Office Director Glenn Kendricks, who openly confesses to Danny that he is a national traitor and terrorist co-conspirator who has been "managing" Wo Fat for years. Now Wo Fat is on a downward slide, he has become a liability to Kendricks and so Kendricks has manipulated the Yakuza to murder Wo Fat, with Steve McGarrett as collateral damage, when Steve is bringing Wo Fat back to prison.

And that's it. I really don't understand it. In the original series of 5-O with Jack Lord, Wo Fat was the primary villain, but in S2:22 he is not. Just as Hesse led to Hiro, who in turn led to Wo Fat, we know now that the "uber villain" or primary bad guy – the Big Bad to borrow from Joss Whedon & the Buffyverse - is Glenn Kendricks, who has been Wo Fat's CIA handler/paymaster/puppet master for years – Wo Fat is subordinate to Kendricks, not vice-versa; Wo Fat has succeeded not through his own innate brilliance but because he was protected, bankrolled and bailed out by Kendricks, who murdered or had murdered at least 6 of his own CIA agents including Jenna Kaye to keep his treachery secret.

Yet after S2:22 this game-changer revelation just disappears in a puff of smoke. Kendricks makes a full confession of his crimes in front of witnesses: Danny is an officially sworn, authorised law officer who can stand up in court – or a grand jury or the Supreme Court - and swear a legal oath and sign an affidavit confirming that Glenn Kendricks made a full, frank, free and completely voluntary and uncoerced confession of high treason against the United States of America, co-conspiracy with a known terrorist and at least six counts of or of arranging first-degree murders (Joshua Hirsh and the 3 unnamed members of the CIA extraction team, Jenna Kaye and Anna Douglas) plus openly stated intent to murder two more people, Wo Fat and Lt Cdr Steven John McGarrett, duly sworn law officer of the State of Hawaii and serving in the U.S. Navy!

There is absolutely no way that Danny would not tell Steve and Governor Denning – and what about Senator Christopher Freed after the events of S3:14 we can be sure that Freed stalks the corridors of power with a photo of Wo Fat in one pocket, Kendricks in another and a handy bullet-point hand out sheet. Yet Kendricks is never referenced again, despite him not Wo Fat being the chief villain and of course the massive implications Kendricks' treason has with respect to Doris, Jack and the murder of Steve's father in Season 3 – see below. I admit in one of my fan-fics I have Danny telling Steve that "Glenn Kendricks is my Wo Fat" – in the episode S2:22 when Danny warns Kendricks that Steve better survive, Kendricks slaps him across the face and tells him not to be ridiculous. Danny Williams strikes me as a very dangerous enemy to make; as we do not know what resources he can call on if he really, really needs to.

14th May 2012:

(S2:23) Malia Waincroft Kelly is murdered; Steve is in Japan at the time, and meets "Shelburne" who turns out to be his far from dead mother, Doris.

Again this episode disappointed in that whilst it is inevitable there had to be a Romantic Tragedy in the show Malia should have lived to the end of at least another Season – the whole reconcile, marry, She is Tragically Killed is a cliché that again is lazy writing.

So much more could have been done with Malia's character, and all good shows have an ensemble cast that you can tap into when the Bill Headliners are unavailable, like Alex O'Loughlin's shoulder injury, or back in _Hercules The legendary Journeys _when Michael Hurst and Bruce Campbell were able to take over several episodes at short notice for an injured Kevin Sorbo – having episodes like _The Zeppo _(Buffy) or those where you focus on the minor characters are great because they bring a fresh perspective and give everyone a breather – for example the brilliant Babylon 5, Season 5 episode _"View from the Gallery"_ told entirely from the viewpoint of two of the station's maintenance janitors whom we never get to see or hear about again. These minor characters can also be pivotal to the solving of the plot or exposition and so forth – Harriet Jones is pivotal in _The Stolen Earth_ yet has a grand total of about 3 minutes' screen time.

Actually Hawaii 5-0 has 'minor characters ruling the day' in S4:1 twice, first when it is recurring character Duke Lukela who has the knowledge of the terrorists' intended escape vehicle (stolen news helicopter) and then when Adam "Toast" Charles is the tech genius who is able to reconstruct enough of the computer table to find out that the NLM sold the location of Adam and Kono to the Yakuza. (Admittedly there was a lot of action in the opening episode of S4:1, but I think they could have spared a line to reference Charlie Fong, who is still in hospital seriously injured after being brutally stabbed by Michael Noshimuri.)

15th May 2012:

Yet again, there must be "not shown" cases to bring Season 3 into synchronicity with Season 2, as S3:1 was broadcast on 24th September 2012 but the events are still taking place on 14th – 15th May 2012. From the way S3:1 and S3:2 play out, it seems as if they take place in May 2012, and then there is a gap of 4½ months we don't see and S3:3 with the boat jacking takes place when it was broadcast (8th October 2012). This is when we learn about Danny's drowned friend Billy.

S3:1 – 14th to 15th May 2012

S3:2 – 16th to 31st May 2012

Interregnum from 1st June 2012 to 7th October 2012 (17wks/4months) – unseen cases

S3:3 – 8th October 2012

15th October 2012:

Doris retrieves a microfilm from under the floorboards of 2727 Piikoi St, although this sets up a major characterisation issue in S3:23 and to a lesser extent in S3:18.

19th November 2012:

Mary, now a private nurse for a wealthy mainlander, Morty Sapperstein, visits Hawaii and goes ballistic about Doris*, until she is persuaded by Morty to accept Doris's approaches, when he explains that his only child, Zoe Sapperstein, was killed in a car accident after being estranged from her parents for many years because he always thought there would be time for them to fix it.

* **Doris: villain or victim.** Both Steve and Mary understandably have huge rage and pain about what Doris did. But I would say in terms of characterisation and plot logic, Doris like Pat Jameson was a victim. In a situation where no good choice could be made, she made the only decision she could.

This goes back to the game-changer about Glenn Kendricks (S2:22). Doris was/is CIA, and by the late 1980s/early 1990s, if she (and Jack?) worked out that there had to be a traitor in the CIA who was helping the Yakuza what if she knew it, but couldn't prove it, or knew it but couldn't find out exactly who the traitor was? You can't defend against an enemy you can't "see" or identify.

She knew that sooner rather than later the traitor would try and murder her and kill her family in the process, so making the traitor think she was dead was the only option. Again, in terms of underpinning story, the implication to me is that Jack McGarrett and Doris faked her death together with Joe White and probably with Hideki Mokoto being an accomplice in Japan. Doris is protecting her children by letting them treat her as the bogeyman and not admitting that Jack – whom they view as a man wronged by her – was in on the plan all along.

Doris did what was necessary to protect innocent people, her family, which again is why there is such an issue with the characterisation of Steve in particular (with S3:18 and S3:23 as examples) but also of Mary McGarrett and to a lesser extent, Danny, Chin and Kono.

Their shock and distrust of Doris simply isn't plausible or true to character in the context of knowing that the real big bad is Glenn Kendricks, something they learned _before _Steve discovered Doris was alive.

In the context of that, the first thing Steve and Danny should have been doing was filling her in that her and Jack's fears back in 1991-92 were right all along and that there was a national traitor in the CIA Hawaii Field Office protecting Wo Fat, then a CIA stool pigeon – yet it is as if everyone's had their memories erased immediately after the events of S2:22.

© 2014

All applicable parts

The Cat's Whiskers

Continued in Chapter 5…


	5. January 2013 to 20 May 2013

**This is a timeline/chronology of characters and events for the Hawaii 5-0 (2010) reboot. **

**Chapter 5:**

**January 2013 to 20****th**** May 2013**

14th January 2013:

Danny's nephew Eric comes to visit, who is a slacker and going off the rails, though he connects with Steve.

20th January 2013:

Chin Ho kills Kalao in Halawa, and Sang Min escapes dressed as a guard in the confusion, as Wo Fat did in 2011 after murdering Victor Hesse.

21st January 2013:

(S3:14) Denning again becomes a suspect when he asks 5-0 to investigate the murder of a prostitute but then tries to shut them down – when Steve demands to know if the DNA evidence will lead to Denning, he admits that he is protecting his friend, Senate candidate Chris Freed, a "devoted single father" and decorated military combat vet (what service is not mentioned but since Freed is white and the Senate candidate for Hawaii, the US Navy and or SEAL/Naval Intelligence is most likely).

It turns out this is a plot by Wo Fat to get his corrupt man Bowers in the Senate – Freed escapes Wo Fat entirely on his own, and 5-0 arrest Bowers; Wo Fat escapes but is severely hampered – Freed knows his name, face and motives and since Freed is elected to the Senate, Wo Fat now has a powerful enemy in the person of the Senator for Hawaii, the Governor of Hawaii (hopefully), the leader of the 5-0 Taskforce – not to mention that there is no way that Danny hasn't fully briefed them that Glenn Kendricks is also a traitor and was formerly bankrolling/controlling Wo Fat's operations.

Additionally Judge Karen Hidoko grants residential custody of Grace to Danny, so Rachel cannot take her to Las Vegas as has been on the cards since Christmas. At the end of the episode, Denning calls by Steve's house where he and Danny are relaxing and has a beer with them, Steve makes the point politely that keeping secrets from him and 5-0 – and not trusting them to help – is what got Pat Jameson killed, and Denning seems to be making a similar mistake.

Circa February to March 2013:

Lou Grover is appointed by Gov. Denning as Captain of HPD SWAT. (The character made several guest appearances in the original 5-O series).

13th May 2013:

Chicago native Lou Grover [Chi McBride] starts his first day as Captain of HPD SWAT, having been appointed by Governor Sam Denning.

The reason why is apparently not stated but given the obvious problems of widespread, historical and still pervasive corruption/incompetence/anti-white racism in HPD, a senior-rank police officer with no taint of corruption (at least in Hawaii) and preferably of non-white ethnicity seems to have been Denning's aim.

We know this is about Grover's start date because in S4:1 Duke Lukela commiserates with Grover that this is an unfortunate first week in a new job, and since 20th May is a Monday, the week before would be 13th May. As with Danny in S1:1 - Danny had been a detective with HPD for six months in September 2010 - so too Lou Grover must have relocated to Oahu at least 4 weeks prior to starting his new job in order for the bureaucracy to have cleared and him to be able to go to HPD and clock on his first shift. Whether he was interviewed as a candidate or headhunted by Denning is not clear.

There is considerable scope for the character. For reasons explained, I have made Grover's character birthday ten years younger than McBride's birth date, yet you can still wonder what on earth would make a veteran Chicago PD senior officer of Captain rank agree to leave his home to travel 5000 miles to Hawaii to start all over again in middle-age (Grover would be 42 in September 2013). It may just be me, but I think he seems as unimpressed with the hot, "pineapple infested hellhole" as Danny – one way the two could bond (and pique Steve) is commiserate over being stuck on the too hot, too sunny, coconut of death festooned rock in the middle of nowhere.

S4:1 also states that there are 8 entrances and exits at the Ali'iolani Hale, all on the ground floor plus one fire escape out back (Duke Lukela says this so I presume he means 8 in total, as it is obvious in the scene where the terrorists come in disguised as repairmen that the entrance is also being used as an exit.)

20th May 2013:

They exonerate Kono of the murders committed by Michael Noshimuri, but Kono and Adam decide to flee Oahu, mentored by Doris, whom Steve finds out has been to visit Wo Fat in prison. This was apparently written in because Grace and her husband Phil Park were expecting their first child?

Again a bit disappointed by the cliché of writing out the female character. It would have been much more original to write the pregnancy into the series with Kono dealing with being a mother at the worst time for it (from her perspective) There is never a good time to have an unplanned pregnancy (that is why they are unplanned because they weren't intentional) and showing the character struggling with being a mother and a kickass member of 5-0 could have been done – they did it with the Teyla Emmagan character on Stargate: Atlantis. They could also show the angst and distress of Adam Noshimuri – forced to leave his woman and their baby in order to protect them – Doris, anyone?

Steve goes to visit the injured Wo Fat, and demands that he disclose the reason for Doris's visit, when the prison is attacked. Wo Fat warns Steve that the intruders are not coming to break Wo Fat out but to kill him – he is a liability to too many people. Season 3 ends on another cliff-hanger with Steve watching the door getting burned through.

There is a continuity issue with the S3 finale – given that Frank Delano managed to infiltrate the HPD and blow up the asset locker, security has been tightened up a wee bit (see the heavy duty body scanners in the lobby of the Ali'iolani Palace in S4:1). So how did the overly tattooed known felon Michael Noshimuri get past security to get into HPD forensics to stab Charlie Fong? If it were that easy every rapist, murderer and drug lord would be knocking the place over daily to destroy the physical evidence of their crimes.

Okay, just before this timeline gets to S4:1: One of the biggest difficulties for me as a fan-fic writer has been the dichotomy of Steve's characterisation especially in Season 3 – the writers simultaneously managed to get one facet spot on and the other completely wrong!

There is a website, TV Tropes and Idioms, where if you "search" for _He Who Fights Monsters_ (a sub-trope of _Tragic Hero, Hero to Villain, Start of Darkness_) you will see what is so obviously the template for the Steven McGarrett character. It encapsulates it far better than I ever could:

(start of trope quote)

"He Who Fights Monsters:

_"He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."_

— **Friedrich Nietzsche**, _Beyond Good and Evil_

Not exactly a villain, but they act antagonistically enough that they might as well be. Something has happened to our Fallen Hero: his village was destroyed, his friends killed, his puppy roasted on an open spit, his bike stolen, whatever.

All that matters is that It's Personal, and he feels that the law just isn't suitable enough (or has become too corrupt and ignorant) to be of any use to him in settling the matter. Oh, sure, he'll justify his actions by claiming that it's Justice he's after, not vengeance, but anyone with half a brain can easily see that he's out for revenge... unfortunately, we can also see that the more he hunts the cause of his woes, the more he takes on the villain's personality and mannerisms — something that our "hero" is too blinded by his single-minded goal to realize.

He may have good intentions — the fiend may well be too dangerous to be kept alive [my note: see Doctor Who 2013 Christmas special, _The Day of the Doctor_] — but ultimately, his obsession with meting out due punishment (or worse) and his refusal to think about what he's doing twists him into a monster just as bad as, or even worse than, the one he's hunting.

And even before he gets to that point, it's nigh-impossible to turn him away; calling him out on it will be ignored or retaliated against. **The Power of Friendship** and **The Power of Love** were lost to him the moment the atrocity that sent him on his wild goose chase happened, and he feels that Team Spirit is just a hindrance; Heel realizations will be ignored. Don't expect him to make a Heroic Sacrifice or Heel-Face Turn anytime soon; if he dies in the process of bringing his nemesis down, it's usually with him crossing into Villainstown in his moment of glory - if he doesn't die...

The "fighting monsters" line represents what is a recognizable _Moral Event Horizon_ for heroes, and both _antiheroes_ and _Well Intentioned Extremists_ live just near the boundary, especially the more pitiless Good Is Not Nice [Steve McGarrett], Unfettered [Doctor Who], Sociopathic Hero [Sherlock Holmes] types. Engaging in Van Helsing Hate Crimes is a good indicator of having _crossed_ the boundary.

As expected, this twisted situation is very popular in the **Revenge Tragedy** genre, especially because of its inherent **Dramatic Irony** . This trope can also be used to demonstrate how "eye-for-an-eye" justice, while sounding like sweet Karmic Equivalent Exchange Justice at first, can easily spiral out into utter chaos if the hero lets his passions, wrath, and Pride forego rationality.

Not to be confused with Complete Monster, although somebody can well become this by fighting such monsters. See also Cycle of Revenge, The Dark Side Will Make You Forget, Protagonist Journey To Villain [my note: a classic example is Lex Luthor from good to evil in the first seven season of _Smallville_], You Are What You Hate [my note: see Bobby Singer in _Supernatural _Season 7], Then Let Me Be Evil, and Became Their Own Antithesis. If this trope happens to a child, it can be used as a Freudian Excuse. If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him is pretty much a sped-up version of this. A classic sub-trope of **Slowly Slipping Into Evil.**

End of trope quote

Friedrich Nietzsche's full quote is: "anything done out of love is beyond good or evil". Unfortunately most things are done out of spite, resentment, self-confidence, pride, opinion and a variety of other less noble reasons.

We can see the above trope right from S1:1, Steve steamrollers into Danny's life (and later on into Chin and Kono's); he considers law to be too weak and inadequate; he arrogantly disrespects the Power of Friendship in S1:22 when he ignores Danny (The Sidekick/Partner/Best Friend*). Instead of Realisation we get Justification of this Reckless Irresponsibility both before and after the act. In Season 2 we see it again – not once but twice does he arrogantly keep Danny _et al_ in the dark, with Jenna Kaye in North Korea, and again with abandoning Danny to face a terrible threat (smallpox) where millions could die because of his own personal vengeance obsession in Tokyo (S2:20; S2:21). Yet again despite on both occasions him having to be rescued from the consequences of his mulish arrogance, there is no remorse, repentance or apology – we go straight to the tropes: It's Personal, You Can't Understand, etc.

* This relationship is also known as the Platonic Spouse** – see Nash Bridges and Joe Dominguez, Chandler Bing and Joey Tribbiani, Sherlock Holmes and John Watson et al. Perhaps the _Nash Bridges_ show is the easiest example: Joe Dominguez (Cheech Marin) has been married to Inga for over 20 years and they are very much in love – but he is very clearly _also_ married to Nash Bridges (Don Johnson). Again, with _Friends_, Chandler and Joey were clearly married to each other although their friendship was never sexual.

** Anthropologically such close friendship/platonic marriage relationships are far more likely to occur when the two individuals involved are male because women tend to have an 'intimate friendship' group of two to five women so the platonic spouse support need and role isn't as urgent, whilst men often have only one intimate friend and two to five wider close friends.

Then we get to Season 3:8 at the end scene where Steve goes to the waterfront to see Cath, Steve McGarrett wears cream or camo colours and is comfy – T-shirts, cargo pants, dress blues. Yet the black silk shirt and dress pants ensemble is exactly how Wo Fat dresses. Again we see the trope in action – Cath has done absolutely nothing wrong in helping Doris or keeping her work for Doris confidential – Steve isn't the master of either woman and certainly isn't Cath's CO; his reaction is petulant and immensely hypocritical given he has pulled the same stunt 3 times on Danny in the previous 2½ years himself (S1:22, S2:20 (appropriately entitled, _Abandoned_) and S2:22).

Yet it is the party he has wronged (Cath) who ends up backing down and being the "bigger man" for the sake of group unity and harmony – like in _Stargate: Atlantis_, S3:22 where Rodney Mackay publicly backs down and apologises to John Sheppard because the Lanteans need the lead group to be working together, so although he believes John Sheppard sacrificed Elizabeth Weir for expediency and to save his own career, he steps up and backs down in order for them to have a chance of survival. Cath Rollins does the same in order to appease Steve, even though he is in the wrong.

This trope is quite evident a lot – the "hero", especially the more emotionally stunted/borderline sociopathic ones will go to extraordinary lengths to protect and keep the partner/sidekick/best friend/platonic spouse with them (driving away rivals for their time and attention and affection, such as old friends, potential love interests, etc.,) but will paradoxically be callous, take them for granted and be immensely hurtful and insensitive – see Doctor Who to the Companions; both Buffy and Angel demonstrated that core of selfish egomania for other examples. In _Star Trek: Voyager_, Capt. Janeway explains to the Doctor that "great" individuals such as T'Pau of Vulcan had to have a dark side in order to keep them going in the face of great horrors or terrible circumstances until the endured and won through.

Usually "The Hero" will have traits of OCD, egomania, selfishness, obstinacy, lack of empathy and an increasing refusal to admit they are in the wrong or avoiding any 'regretful confession' of that fact in the aftermath – usually after the friend/person who pointed that out in the first place has been killed or at least left seriously disadvantaged because they were right after all.

Perhaps the classic example is _King Lear_, where Cordelia ends up murdered despite warning her father Lear about her wicked, ungrateful older sisters Goneril and Regan. Another example is in the 2005, _The Christmas Invasion, _featuring the Tenth Doctor Who (David Tennant). Although the invasion is averted by the Doctor, Prime Minister Harriet Jones orders the covert Torchwood organisation to destroy the _retreating _Sycorax ship, arguing that there will come a time when the Doctor cannot protect Earth and so she must do what she can to defend it. The Doctor reacts furiously and tells her that he can bring her down with just six words: "Don't you think she looks tired?" In the episode's dénouement, Jones faces rumours of ill-health.

In the 2008 episode, _The Stolen Earth_, after Earth has been conquered by a Dalek invasion, Jones contacts other former Companions and organises them to help locate and call the Doctor to help. When one of them asks why she is helping because the Doctor deposed her (from being Prime Minister), she calmly points out the obvious – "'He did and I've wondered about that for a long time whether I was wrong, but I stand by my actions to this day because I knew – I knew that one day the Earth would be in danger and the Doctor would fail to appear. I told him so myself and he didn't listen.'" Despite knowing the Daleks will murder her, Harriet Jones organises reaching the Doctor.

In the finale of the trilogy, _Journey's End_, the Doctor is told of Harriet Jones' sacrifice and is visibly shocked – yet that is it. There is not even one line or a passing confession of contrition for the fact that she was right and he had made a fateful, arrogant mistake in manipulating her downfall, nor any such reference in any future episode that his own overwhelming confidence in his own judgement was fallible and flawed.

We see glimpses of this with Steve – it is always Danny, or Mary, or Cath, or Doris who is in the wrong, who is 'against him' by their choices and by having their own opinions and sticking to them – never once has Steve apologised at all, never mind with sincerity, to Danny for costing him the chance to rebuild his life with his wife and children in New Jersey, because his reckless arrogance forced Danny to choose, and Danny, because he is loyal and honourable and has integrity, chose to stay in Hawaii and help Steve.

There are also apparently flashes of callousness in Season 4 from fan reviews – with Danny's claustrophobia for example, when Danny says in response, "I guess you don't pay that much attention to me" – yet again we have the trope, taking the loyal support for granted and attempts to justify and rationalise wrongdoing committed in the name of "justice" (really personal revenge). Yet again we have his insecurity about Billy Harrington – friend but also romantic rival* – reappearing on the scene in May 2013 (S4:2, S4:3, S4:4 and S4:5).

Although these have been unpleasant, they are very realistic portrayals of how someone of Steve McGarrett's character would probably react given his background – stable family, but undemonstrative father, military background, "legalised serial killer" as a SEAL, etc. The show has done a good job.

* I am disappointed in the way the show has treated the Billy Harrington bit – a good TV show has layers, which is why an ensemble cast is a good thing because there's plenty of scope to give people meaty, angst-ridden backgrounds, but 5-0 has 2 big flaws in that it fails on the follow through or it is inconsistent (see below about Steve's characterisation again). We had "big gun" opportunities with Matt Williams and the revelation of Glenn Kendricks as the real big bad, and with Joe White and Doris and the cross-over between NCIS:LA which had possibilities, but these seem to have been short-lived plot devices that have been erased from collective memories. Even though it was Political Correctness rearing its ugly head again kick-ass Kono actually worked well for once, in contrast with other shows blighted by such tokenism such as _Battlestar Galactica_ (token woman) and _The Magnificent Seven_ (token black)).

Yet contrast the bold Cath Rollins guest-star of S1-2 with the watered-down regular cast member of S3-S4. In S1 we had a Catherine Bell as Sarah Mackenzie (JAG) type Lt. Catherine Rollins – confident, droll, wry, intelligent, having got the measure of McGarrett but – for the moment – tolerating his blandishments because it suits her to do so, just like the female protagonist in the Phil Collins song: _You don't own me and you never could – don't think you do, don't think you should/But you suit my purpose and you're just my kind_.

But by S3 it seems as if the scriptwriters have fallen back into the Happy Days 1950s time-warp where a woman's only "true" fulfilment is through matrimony and then maternity. In S1 Cath is clearly in love with her career as much as Steve is in love with his – probably why they've got along so well because they love but are (or were) not in love with each other. But in S4, Steve's insecurity about Billy is clearly motivated because he has and is treating Cath badly, in respect of The Power of Love part of the He Who Fights Monsters trope – but won't admit it.

The show could have really got stuck in here and had a slow build sub plot lasting through S4 (and into early S5) showing how in the modern world equal rights for women have added more chains to us not fewer. Yet Cath's angst before sacrificing her career in the Navy for Steve is all off screen, despite him showing a considerable lack of emotional maturity at various points in the show – especially in S1 and S3. 'Commitment phobia' in anyone claiming to be an adult is puerile, childish and a big warning sign - to dump the man or woman showing it – whilst being emotionally unavailable can have a valid psychological or emotional context, commitment phobia is often a symptom of 'Victimology' – it's always someone else's fault/I'm a helpless victim of circumstance and should be treated with wariness as such people tend to be self-centred and unreliable. We have a classic example in Mary Ann: still teenage rebellious and immature in S1, refuses to commit to anything or anyone long term, S2/3, impulsively "adopts" a cute baby that can't argue back S4, using her youthful tragedy as a string of excuses (not a reason) when she lets others down or self-indulges in bad behaviour and immorality/semi-criminal wrongdoing, S1, S3.

Poor Billy is summarily killed off (S4:5) when he could have been a really good recurring character – Steve's friend, but also Cath's ex; Steve's battle to honour these two conflicts could have been really good, especially in terms of cementing his friendship with Danny, who has vastly more experience and wisdom than Steve in human relationships and making them work even when you personally have major issues – he warns Steve specifically of the dangers of Billy and Cath working together again even presciently quoting some of Billy's exact phraseology to Steve before Steve can say what Billy said. Despite this Steve goes completely opposite Danny's advice at the end of S4:2 and tells Cath she should take the job as Comptroller in Billy's new civilian security firm despite Danny's warnings of the danger. Danny is aware of Steve's emotional deficits and the inherent dangers of Cath, emotionally short-changed by Steve, working in close proximity to a handsome, brave, intelligent former lover who is also emotionally available.

Like _Supernatura_l, which positively avoided the "he's in the credits so he can't die" cliché but then turned this into a negative by foolishly routinely killing off characters it then needed later on, so too Billy is a character that could have been very useful, not just in terms of Steve but in terms of how he interacted with Danny, Chin, 5-0, etc., that has all been wasted – and of course again we get the Steve is indestructible because he's a SEAL routine except that every other SpecWar/SEAL operative has the toughness of candy floss (unless it's in the script they don't, e.g., Lt. Bradley Jacks and Cdr. Wade Gutches of Team Nine).

From a feminine viewpoint it is very disappointing, especially when technically you consider that Hawaii 5-0 exists in the same universe as JAG, the Big Daddy of NCIS: Contrast the rich, multi-layered portrayal of Catherine Bell as Sarah Mackenzie, who ended up outranking her paramour (David James Elliott) Harmon Rabb Jr., and being well on her way to being General Mackenzie, or that of first Sasha Alexander as Caitlin Todd and then Cote de Pablo as Ziva David and also Lauren Holly as Jenny Shepard in _NCIS_, with the poor material that Michele Borth has to work with as Catherine Rollins. I hope the actress advocates for getting Catherine Bell's/Cote de Pablo's scriptwriters for herself, because they are needed.

But then we go from the really good, trope side of Steve's characterisation as mentioned above, to the unrealistic issues, which is most particularly shown in S3:8, S3:18 and S3:23. These episodes are really where we needed to see either Taryn Manning brought in as Mary McGarrett, or Danny Williams to portray these scenes and speak those lines.

Steve's attitude at the waterfront when he finds out Cath has been helping Doris is childish and hypocritical, but in "real life" whatever his personal reaction, his professional life as a SEAL with a back catalogue of "so classified I can't even tell myself" missions means he would know that there were certain things both Doris and Cath _could not_ tell him regardless of his personal relationship to them (e.g., mother and wife) just like he has to say, 'It's classified Danny' or, like in S2:3 where we meet SEAL Team 9 for the first time, '_I can neither confirm nor deny_'. SEALs and other SpecWar operators – of both sexes - are _not allowed _to discuss what they do – or even what they really are – with their spouse, parents, siblings, older/adult children, best friend/platonic spouse and Steve is perfectly well aware of that fact. Additionally, Cath carries the rank of Lt* in the same Navy he serves in, for goodness sake, so his reaction was implausible.

* In fact, I wonder if the reason the writers had Cath leave the Navy in S4 was because in "real life" she was due to outrank him – by transferring to the reserves in 2010, Steve's promotions stick at Lt. Cdr unless he is allowed to retire from the Reserves with the honorary rank of Commander, whereas at their level, Cath should be heading for Lt. Cdr by 2013/4 and then up to Commodore Rollins – like in JAG when Rabb kept resigning every other season, the show realistically shows him stuck way down as a Cdr when Sarah Mackenzie, who sticks it out, steadily heads up through Major, Lt. Col, Colonel and General. Likewise in _Stargate: SG1,_ Capt. Carter ends up as General Carter ten seasons later.

Probably with McGarrett being the titular hero they didn't want a situation where the love interest is the senior partner/higher rank, although a man secure in his masculinity and identity wouldn't have any problems with this – J.T. Edson portrayed such a professional/personal relationship in his 1970s police procedural books_, Rockabye County_, where the experienced Alice Fayde was the senior partner and the newly graduated Bradford Counter the junior. We saw a glimpse of it with Grace Tilwell who was clearly the senior partner in Newark PD with Danny in 2001.

The most jarring reactions of Steve are in S3:18 and above S3:23 - When Steve discovers that Doris had hid the microfilm in their family home under the floorboards he is furious, ranting, 'you brought that into our _home_' yet that is a totally out of character reaction.

As a SEAL and covert operative Steve knows the need to trust virtually nobody and to have leverage to protect your loved ones – it's exactly the sort of thing he would and presumably had done, along with everyone else in the "specwar" field – it's what Sam Hanna and Callen were going on about when they lecture Deeks about using "spy craft" and the actions that Hetty Lange exemplifies – I bed Hetty could be 'cold dropped' anywhere on the planet in the clothes she's standing in and never be more than a quarter-mile from a cache of ready money, a valid passport and a set of culturally appropriate clothing and some disguised weaponry that looks totally innocuous like a Chinese strangulation scarf.

Given what Steve had learned about no less than the _Director _of the Hawaii CIA Field Office the year before, it would have been far more plausible that he would have been asking Doris if the microfilm had any evidence to implicate Kendricks in treason – once 5-0 told her who the CIA traitor was (early Season 3 it should have been though it is never shown on screen), Doris could have got cracking using her sources and resources to gather evidence to take out Kendricks, who at the moment seems to still be swanning about Hawaii large and in charge and fancy free. Really? After annoying people as dangerous as US Senator Chris Freed, Steve McGarrett and openly admitting in front of half-a-dozen of his subordinates that he had had their teammates murdered to help out Wo Fat?

But S3:23 was even worse. Steve barges past his mother in her own home, and when he finds Mick Logan and Wade Gutches he is insulting, disrespectful, arrogant, condescending and – well, basically, he acts like a petulant three year old throwing a temper tantrum – I had the overwhelming urge to give him the hard smacked bottom he deserved and send him to his room for a week. Woe betide me if I _ever_ went to my parents' house and mouthed off so insultingly and disrespectfully to my mother – I'd have got a slap across the face three words in – and forget it if my father was present – I would be grabbed by the scruff of the neck and summarily ejected for that spoilt brat outbreak no matter whether I was four, fourteen or forty-four, because _nobody_ disrespects my father's wife in their own home – or out of it.

Unfortunately I know in Western culture TV shows are all "youth" adulating – people aged under 30 have the world weary wisdom of the ages and anyone over 30 is a boring dinosaur who needs to get a life or a clue. It isn't true. People under the age of 30 have the life experience of a gnat and the wisdom of a gerbil. If you want sanity, sense and sensibleness, find the nearest 50 plus year old and hang on their words of solid common sense – in the words of one my work colleagues, 'what terrifies me that my father has Alzheimer's Disease and he's still got far more intellect than my 14 year old who thinks she's got the wisdom of the ages from Facebook and Wikipedia – and she's the doctor or lawyer or judge of the future – we are doomed.'

But US Navy SEALs are not like that. In the SEALs there is a tradition, a culture, of respect and reverence for retired SEALs and UDT (underwater demolition team) frogmen, their predecessors. These men are honoured for their experience and their insights; SEALs consider these to be their "sea daddies", their mentors – the silly worship of teenage airheads who think they know it all and have nothing between their ears but their skull has no place in SEAL traditions which understands the respect due men who managed to live long enough to retire from the US Navy in the days before Kevlar, unmanned drones and other handy accoutrements. As a SEAL if nothing else, it is ingrained in Steve to respect age and the wisdom and life experience brought with it. So:

Steve is in the Navy Reserves, which means he is actively in the U.S. Navy. Wade Gutches is the CO of SEAL Team Nine – he is on active duty and he is Steve's superior officer. Even if Doris swallowed Steve's disgraceful display out of a misplaced sense of guilt, Wade Gutches would have come down on him like a tonne of bricks for that, even had Steve completely ignored all his Navy training and chain-of-command and dared to sound off when he laid eyes on Wade.

The three people planning the retrieval of the microfilm are CIA, NSA, and a SEAL. Between Mick, Doris and Wade they have over a century of mission experience and knowledge – Steve would know that as the youngest of the four of them by at least 20 years _he not they_ are the liability – the weakest link due to his inexperience and lack of mission knowledge (relatively speaking of course). His attitude that they are all doddery old fools who should be playing chequers in their pipe and slippers is nonsensical and utterly out of character.

That just really frustrates me because the writers have done so well with showing the darker edges of the _He Who Fights Monsters _trope then they go and do stuff like the above.

If they wanted to portray that attitude, what they needed to do was have Mary Ann McGarrett discover about the microfilm and rant about it to Steve/Doris and have Danny Williams (or Mary again) discover Doris, Wade and Mick in the process of planning the heist, and for Danny or Mary, as a civilian and therefore without the understanding of the nuances that Steve has as a SpecWar/covert ops veteran to display those attitudes and make Steve aware, in which case he could come in as the 4th member of the heist team to support Doris, Mick and Wade which would have been in character and therefore believable. It all smacks of lazy writing and plot ideas that have not been thought through properly – as in, okay if we do this now/have this reveal now where will that put us three seasons down the line? What made _Babylon 5 _such a good show for example is that it was a visual novel – it had a clear beginning (Seasons 1-2), middle (S3-4) and end (S4-5). Likewise the original series of 5-O had a clear over-arching theme (get Wo Fat) and a definite end (Wo Fat in jail) although yes, they did spoil it with that silly end clip of Wo Fat smirking and pulling out a lock-pick in his cell.

Nothing lasts forever and with the best will in the world Alex O'Loughlin and Scott Caan, Daniel Dae Kim et al are circling 40. When you're 30 you can bounce back from falls down steps or minor car crashes but as my doctor told me, by 40 you _will_ get arthritis at those injury sites and it takes 100 crunches to get a four pack when a few years earlier it took 50 to get a six pack and even the men find themselves in "moment on the lips lifetime on the hips" territory. The scriptwriters should know where they are going – happy ending, it better be after all this – and have at least some framework of how they are going to get there. This sort of writing doesn't inspire confidence in that being in place.

© 2014

All applicable parts

The Cat's Whiskers

Concluded in Chapter 6…


	6. 20 May 2013 to December 2013

**This is a timeline/chronology of characters and events for the Hawaii 5-0 (2010) reboot. **

**Chapter 6:**

**20****th**** May 2013 to present**

20th May 2013:

S4:1 National Liberation Movement (NLM) terrorist group break into a top security prison to kill Wo Fat, except they are all killed bar one by McGarrett!

S4:1 picks up just a few seconds after S3:24 stops, so even though the episode was broadcast 27th September 2013, the action is taking place 20th May 2013.

We see in the episode as well as at least some Russian, Danny also understands Spanish as he doesn't need Steve to translate what is being said over the short wave radios.

We also learn that Hawaii 5-0's interrogation room is in the Basement of the Ali'iolani Hale on the main **East** Corridor (one of what appear to be storerooms/emergency cells). We know this because when the male terrorist (Tomas) catches up to them and Steve shoots him dead through the other terrorist's shoulder (the NLM leader's nephew), they have left the interrogation room and gone through the basement, along the corridor into the West Corridor of the Basement, so must have come through the East Corridor.

The electronic schematic Duke has up shows that there is a central bloc, a larger East Wing rectangle and a smaller more square-shaped West Wing. Through S1 and in specific episodes such as S4:2 and of course from S1:22 when Laura Hills' car explodes, 5-0 HQ appears to be situated on the top (second) floor of the **West **Wing at the front corner of the building overlooking where King Kamehameha's statue is – as you look at the building past the statue this appears to be the top floor left front corner, if you were in the building or behind it then it would appear to be the top right corner of the building.

There is an emergency exit in the basement, which is a ninth exit as the 8 entrances and fire escape out back are on the ground floor according to Duke Lukela.

From a continuity viewpoint, the terrorists must have taken the precaution of putting a bomb on the basement emergency exit before going back up and around to the main entrance lobby disguised as repairmen, because they are concentrated in the central rotunda underneath the glass dome roof and the female terrorist has not got past Danny and Steve to get to the emergency exit to interfere with it – she is behind them, still coming from the East Corridor.

In S4:1 Steve tells Danny that love is a serious thing and if you say "I love you" you can't unsay it. Danny – quote of the episode? – quips, 'are you speaking from experience because I personally don't think it counts if you say it to a pistol' – this may be an in-joke reference to the legendary cult comedy TV series _Sledge Hammer!_ whose titular cop character (David Rasche) was deeply in love with his "Dirty Harry" .44 Magnum Smith & Wesson pistol to the extent he slept with it on the pillow next to him, showered with it, talked to it, and referred to it in the feminine as 'her' and 'she' – Sledge Hammer was also an advocate of health foods like granola bars, though I'm sure the many coincidental resemblances between Sledge and Steve are just that – coincidence.

We also meet Cadet Officer "P. Kai" who is a police cadet and who will graduate in three months' time (90 days) – he says this to Kamekona who arrives on the scene and wants to go inside to his friends.

Again, there is Political Correct infection here – the NLM terrorists are mostly Caucasian/Hispanic and their religious affiliation appears to be nominally Christian Catholic/Santera…why? To be honest, I have not really understood why Hawaii 5-0 keeps skirting around the issue - with the exception of one episode in S3:6 – of the fact that 98% of the world's terrorist groups are Muslims.

NCIS: LA was quite open about Islamic terrorism in the first couple of seasons but then in the NCIS: LA S4:20 episode, '_Purity_' the terrorist group turn out to be white evangelical Christians (!?) and in the crossover episodes of S2:21 (Hawaii 5-0) and NCIS: LA S3:21 the terrorist turns out to be a white atheist female scientist (!?)

It reminds me of the LGBT group who did a study of the portrayal of LGBT characters in movies and in 2013 issued a press release that trumpeted the fact that LGBT individuals were only represented in 13% of US movies. This was all set to be a liberal story of under-representation and a right-wing conspiracy to discriminate until a statistician pointed out in the media that less than 3% of the mainland US population identified as LGBT in the 2010 US census, so in order to reflect the surrounding social culture and be proportionally representative of the national population, LGBT portrayals had to be drastically reduced as they were actually over-represented in mainstream entertainment media by at least 10%. This special interest group suddenly went all quiet at that point.

The same thing is the case here – there are fanatic, terrorist, extremist white atheist scientists, and fanatic terrorist communists, and evangelical Christians and violent terrorist Sikhs and Taoists, but they represent something like less than 3% of total terrorists and yet are greatly over-represented on shows such as Hawaii 5-0. If you aren't going to be honest about it, why bother? Instead, swap out the risible notion of evangelical Christian terrorists for an ordinary band of psychopathic bank robbers – much more believable.

There is also a continuity cock-up issue here. At the end of the episode Steve cuts Wo Fat and takes a sample of his blood to Max to test because he seriously wonders if Wo Fat is his half-brother. But, Wo Fat's DNA – blood and tissue – is already in official and medical databases, at the very least from his burn injuries in the helicopter crash from S3 if nothing else, not to mention previous incidences when his blood got all over McGarrett during their epic fights. And not to mention when he was first arrested and so forth, it would be a basic law enforcement procedure to run his DNA against unsolved crimes and other databases to identify any "hits" which means that Steve and Wo Fat can't be genetically related as if they were, this would have been identified well before mid-Season 2 as a bare minimum, if not Season 1 – before Steve knew Doris was alive.

However, whilst Wo Fat and Steven being half-brothers was dangerously close to jumping the shark territory, Wo Fat could still plausibly be Doris's son (see S2:4 below).

25th and 26th May 2013:

1, Kono and Adam* escape the Yakuza hit

**Update February 2014:** In respect of the fact that nobody should be coming after Adam now Michael is dead, in S4:4 a conversation between Chin and Kono reveals that the gunmen are under the control of a Yakuza "boss" for one of the main Japanese Yakuza families named Asoto or Asoko (I could not make out the exact name during the episode). Whilst getting rid of a rival (Adam Noshimuri) and swallowing up the Noshimuri Yakuza territory and assets is entirely business as usual, it seems the man is out to kill Kono as well, for unknown reasons – since she is not in a committed relationship with Adam (i.e., legally married) she has no status or claim – she is no impediment, so the motive there remains unknown. However, Asoto/Asoko does resolve the first continuity issue below in that it provides a reason for the assassins to keep coming.

* There are two continuity errors/issues raised by 4:2.

Firstly, in the beginning when Adam tells Kono that Michael's army won't stop coming after them – but Michael is dead. Since Hiro, Koji and Michael Noshimuri are all deceased, the new Head/Chief/Patriarch (Oyuban) of the family (and therefore boss of this 'army' itself) is…Adam.

And since Michael is dead, who is paying these foot-soldiers? Michael couldn't pay the NLM for info on Adam's whereabouts because he was dead, and Adam has now inherited everything from his father, brother and uncle so he is the only one who could access the family accounts to pay them. There is no way the hired killers – operative word, hired – are going to work for free, whether their reward is money, or moving up the ranks, or whatever, Yakuza or not.

What's more, the Yakuza do not have any philosophical or ideological objection to individuals who career progress to "senior management" (oyuban) via patricide/fratricide.

Finally, the show depicts Adam being in great danger by trying to legitimise the family businesses – in fact, in real life, the Yakuza and other criminal syndicates such as the Mafia have gradually moved into enterprises that are technically legal, no matter how dubiously moral, because their focus is money, and many of these "grey market" areas are earning them far more money than drug trafficking, slave/prostitution trafficking and 'traditional' crimes. The Sicilian Mafia for example have pretty much destroyed large swathes of southern Italy by forcing farmers and vintners to 'voluntarily' donate land for wind farms that will never function, earning the Mafiosi vast amounts of perfectly legal if amoral EU subsidy payments under "eco" initiatives.

Similarly, illegal poaching of rhino horn is now more lucrative than gold, platinum and blood diamonds, and carries virtually no risk of being caught or convicted if you are thanks to corruption and criminality. The "grey market" trade in relics and antiques where "provenance" can be easily forged is again just as financially lucrative as drugs and a great deal safer and more pleasant, as is the market in exotic fauna and flora – this was highlighted in S3:12 _Kapu _where the episode viewers got to pick who the killer was – it all centred around a rare medicinal flower that only grows onNihau island. In real life The 137 Hawaiian Islands have a huge number of unique and endangered species and very limited environmental "policing"/fighting back against invasive species of flora and fauna (cats and rats particularly). It is highly likely that the most senior Yakuza power players would – well not support the new direction – but not interfere with it either unless it caused them real problems, which is highly unlikely to be the case.

So, who is paying the Yakuza to hunt Adam Noshimuri since he is now the head/boss of the Noshimuri family and Wo Fat, the only other likely candidate who could or would fund such a literal manhunt is currently inside a SuperMax on the mainland and has more important things on his mind than the now-irrelevant (to him) Noshimuri family?

2, Danny sees Max give Steve an envelope and during a 'cargument' Steve reveals his fears that he and Wo Fat were half-brothers**, because Doris won't murder Wo Fat and Wo Fat seemingly won't murder Doris. The results are that Wo Fat and Steve are unrelated.

** _Where there's a will, there's a relative. Friends are the family you choose yourself_. _Family is as much about heart and soul as it is about blood and bone._ There are many variations on this theme but they indicate one great truth: being genetically related to a group of people doesn't make you family.

I'm a genetic genealogist which is why I probably made a couple of jumps ahead back in Season 2-3 when several fan forums started to speculate about Wo Fat as Dad, half-brother and so forth – let's just say I'm familiar with the myriad bizarre permutations of what DNA can do – and can't do.

It is entirely possible that Doris is the mother of Wo Fat and Mary Ann but not Steve. Yes I know, bear with me on this.

In my story _Daughter of Time_ (© 2013 The Cat's Whiskers) Danny discovers his suspicion that Mary is the biological mother of Joan is correct, because he finds that he is the biological father, because Mary was one of several women who fell victim to the 'Screening Fee Scam' (this may be known by a different name depending on the country, but follows the same basic pattern) and his sperm was used without his knowledge or hers to impregnate Mary. Danny and Mary investigate further and Mary turns to Danny in acute distress when tests show that she and Steve share paternal DNA, but their mitochondrial DNA does not match, but Mary's mtDNA matches with Wo Fat, meaning that Steve and Mary share the same father but not the same mother, and that Wo Fat and Mary share the same mother but not the same father.

I thought of that idea for several reasons. For example, Jack, Doris and Mary all have fair blonde hair, light blue eyes and are of comparable heights. Danny looks far more like their child/brother than does Steve, who is noticeably taller, brunette, with dark blue eyes. As a genealogist I can say that it is far more typical for a child to resemble _neither _parent but a grandparent or the sibling of a parent/grandparent. Nonetheless, it has never been said in canon that Steve (or Mary) were born in Honolulu or even on Oahu/any Hawaiian island. In S1 Steve explains that Jack called the four of them '5-0' because it was the 50th State and they were not from Hawaii, but that is it. Therefore, if Steve were born elsewhere, if Jack moved to Oahu when he was small with Doris, nobody there would have any reason to know that Doris was not Steve's biological mother.

Additionally humans only begin to have permanent memories from between the age of 2 to 2½ years of age, so if Steve was a year or 18 months or even 2 years old when his biological mother died he would have no memory of any other mother than Doris ever being there. This biological fact is used to create angst in the early seasons of _Supernatural_ where Sam Winchester [Jared Padalecki] has no memory of or love for his dead mother as he was only 6 months old to Dean's 4½ years when she was murdered – Dean [Jensen Ackles] conversely adores her and reacts with rage when Sam points out in Season 1 that he wouldn't even know what his mother looked like had Dean not shown him a photograph of her.

We also get help from the science bit. Men inherit Y-Chromosome DNA from their father; a blood test will only prove that a man _cannot_ be the father or that he is _possibly_ the father – only DNA testing will prove that a man _must_ be the father. Since Steve only had Wo Fat's blood, the blood test is only able to show that they are unrelated – they _cannot _share the same father.

A child inherits his or her mitochondrial DNA from their mother, but because it is passed from mother to daughter, a man's daughters will inherit their mtDNA from his wife, not his mother. The only way to confirm maternity is to test the mtDNA of the mother to the children. Different mtDNA equals different mother (except in certain very specific circumstances which are far too complex to get into here). So what if:

Doris is born in 1942

The CIA usually recruits at college, often during the first year for talented candidates (_Chuck, S1_) so 1961 – birth of the Swinging Sixties, Doris is Freshman and joins the CIA

1963 – Doris meets Wo Fat senior.

1964 – Doris has Wo Fat. Given her age Wo Fat was certainly an unintentional accident but Doris probably resisted immense agency pressure to abort and disappear. Mark Dacascos is of mixed white/oriental/Asian ethnicity, so an Occidental/Oriental parentage is plot plausible.

1965 – Doris may have met or known 'Steve's mom' they could have been friends with each other and Jack McGarrett for some years as Jack served in the Navy/Naval Intelligence – at some point, Steve's mom marries Jack McGarrett.

1977 – Steve's mom has Steve – it is likely that from her Steve inherits his dark hair and dark blue eyes and his height.

1977-1978 – Steve's mom dies or is killed; the most likely scenario is an op gone bad, one which also resulted in the death of Wo Fat senior. Doris (and Jack?) is filled with survivor guilt and the death of Wo Fat's father has made an Occidental wife's position untenable in an Oriental culture that is also criminal. Forced to leave Wo Fat with his father's relatives as he is heir to his father's Yakuza role and as a stroppy rage-filled teenager Wo Fat would likely turn on Doris and tantrum that he was going to be bigger, badder and better than his father ever was, Doris picks the one person who actually needs her, the defenceless baby Steven McGarrett. Wo Fat, who never expected his mother to call his bluff and do exactly what he demands and leave, ends up nursing a massive sense of rage, resentment, grief and confusion as his mother disappears into thin air with her white American 'friends' Jack (McGarrett) and Joe (White). (From S2 it seems fairly obvious that if Steve is Jack's son but not Doris's then Joe White knows)

Jack and Doris relocate with toddler Steve to Oahu and blend in to civilian life; nobody realises that Doris is not Steve's biological mother.

c.1980 – Jack and Doris have a mutual child, Mary Ann.

In that case, the blood test would accurately show that Steve and Wo Fat could not be related, despite them sharing a mutual half-sibling (Mary Ann) and therefore it would never occur to Steve that maybe Wo Fat was Doris's son, but he himself wasn't. Only a mtDNA test would show up whether Steven John, Mary Ann and Wo Fat all, or two, or none, shared the same mother.

Again, Jack's last message to Steve in S1:1 would fit this scenario, if Jack was not only in on the faked-death plan from the start, but also knew there was a chance Steve would discover that Jack was his father but Doris wasn't his mother. Joe White's emotional ambivalence, Doris's attitude to Wo Fat and Steve would also be explained if Doris was protecting Jack's reputation and Mary Ann as well as Steve from the truth. I do think it's a fairly original take on it – and very plausible from a plot point of view – there is virtually nothing else likely to make Doris so forgiving of Wo Fat or Wo Fat so reluctant to hurt Doris, unless there is some sort of family relationship – mother and son, aunt and nephew, half-brother and sister, themselves.

(It could even be: Doris is the mother of Wo Fat and Mary Ann, Jack is the father of Steve, Joe White and Doris are the parents of Mary Ann – but that's complicating the issue too far, even for me…and if the last were the case, Jack and Joe remained friends until the end of their lives, so Jack clearly accepted Joe's paternity of 'his own' daughter Mary Ann.)

3, Billy Harrington relocates to Hawaii to set up a civilian security firm. Catherine, urged by Steve, begins to work as his Comptroller/XO (Executive Officer).***

*** The second continuity issue comes in the second cargument (the one in the new Camaro not the first one in the Marquis Steve has to drive because the NLM blew up the old one the week before). This is where Danny tells Steve how unwise it is for Cath and Billy to work together again because they have not just a romantic history but a previous serious, stable relationship with Billy displaying none of the vacillating and commitment phobia Steve has done. (In the episode Cath tells Steve "I'm happy with us right now" implying in the past she was unhappy – enough to consider ending things with Steve?)

Steve protests that he has full confidence in Billy's honour, telling Danny that "we served together, we saw action together, it's about character and integrity". At which point every viewer was or should have been yelling "Bullshit Bullfrog!" at the screen – it's like both Danny and Steve have complete amnesia regarding Nick Taylor from S1:9 who was also a former SEAL teammate of Steve's (like Billy) who also went civilian contractor (like Billy has), who also saw action with Steve (like Billy has) and – oh yes, turned into a money-obsessed hired killer. _Quest le_ character and integrity there then, _mon ami?_

It's also interesting because Danny seems to speak with the voice of experience in that both Billy and Cath might find themselves infected with rose-tinted-it is and the Nostalgia Flu/Grass Is Always Greener virus. This could imply that Rachel and Stan had previously worked together or had a romantic thing and that Rachel also assured Danny that she and Stan could work together without any problem – and at the time, probably meant it. Alternatively, it could mean that Danny himself did something he is not proud of when he was in the position Billy is now.

But my ultimate niggle about the episode is _cherchez le Fong?_ Given that their supposed friend and colleague was the victim of a murder attempt by Michael Noshimuri, would it have been so hard for Kono or Chin to passing mention him, e.g., 'Is Charlie out of the hospital yet?' (Kono) or 'I'm dropping by Charlie's house to see how his recuperation is going?' (Chin) – just one line acknowledging they appreciate his heroism? Unless this was said and I missed it, but I didn't notice it if so.

NB - There have to be more "not shown cases" because S4:1 takes place on 20th May 2013, despite being broadcast in September, and episode S4:2 takes place on the weekend of 25th/26th May, although it was broadcast on 4th October, but S4:6 episode, _Kapouli'la_, Broken, takes place at Halloween and was broadcast on 1st November 2013, so there must be unseen cases that bring the transmitted episodes back into sync with the supposed timeline that took place after S4:2 and before S4:6 – S4:9 which features Aunt Deb was also taking place at Thanksgiving and is broadcast at Thanksgiving week (22nd November 2013).

S4:1 – takes place 20th May 2013 (broadcast 27th May 2013)

S4:2 – takes place weekend of Sat/Sun 25th/26th May 2013 (broadcast October 4th 2013)

Interregnum between 27th May to 30th June 2013 (not shown cases)

S4:3 – take place 1st week of July 2013 (broadcast 11th October 2013)

S4:4 – takes places 2nd week of July 2013 (broadcast 18th October 2013)

Interregnum between 15th July 2013 to 25th October 2013 (not shown cases)

S4:5 – takes place 25th October 2013 (broadcast 25th October)

S4:6 – takes place 31st October to 1st November (broadcast 1st November)

The reason I have posited two 'gaps' is because in S4:1 Gabby has just returned to Oahu and was snuggling on the couch with Danny when wackiness ensues. Both S4:3 and S4:4 deal with archaeology/Gabby's areas of expertise. Since in S4:4 Danny makes an important romance decision to break up with Gaby so she can take a six-month job in Chicago, it is highly unlikely that the two of them keep dancing around the issue from 26th May to mid-October when those episodes were broadcast, so plausibly there were 4 or 5 cases in between, say six weeks, then we get S4:3 and S4:4.

The reason I have a second gap between July to October 2013 is because ex-Navy SEAL or not (yeah, kid, join the queue) there is no way that Billy Harrington as a clean-cut preppy white boy is going to set up a civilian security firm on Oahu – the most security conscious island in the chain and just be neck deep in clients in a week. Realistically it would take a few months for him and Catherine to build up their client-base by good results and word-of-mouth to the level where it is beginning to take off commercially, so again there were several cases, say 12-14 weeks, between the events of S4:4 and S4:5 when Billy is murdered. Kamekona had to do the same thing as he built up from the shave ice stand to the shrimp truck and now has helicopter tours along with them, and if S4:2 is anything to go by, also sponsors the Pee Wee Baseball League Honolulu Shrimps Team.

June 2013:

(S4:3) Catherine resigns her commission from the Navy; photographs exist of Chin Ho as a child trumpet player at Band Camp!

I have to admit I really like S4:3 because it was a simple, uncomplicated adventure case fic – unlike the Robert Englund fiasco or the won where it was Alex O'Loughlin and Sean Combs wetting everyone with their horrible and overwrought machismo, we had a great guest star (Hurley!) and 'Danno' got to shine with Scott Caan having the best quips of the episode again, right up there with his _Sledgehammer _classic from S4:1.

I also liked the fact that although it was hokum, it wasn't – and it was based on Hawaiian history. The Royal League and ancient keys and cipher cylinders might all sound like Nicholas Cage filming the _National Treasure _'threequel' but in actual fact it is all solidly historical.

Many years ago I went to the British Museum with a Biblical Historian friend who showed me the passage in Genesis (where Abraham leaves Ur to 'live in tents' for the rest of his life) and then showed me around the exhibits explaining how Abraham lived in a forty-room three storey mansion with indoor plumbing and even smokeless eco-lighting. The Victorian Empire of the 19th Century considered itself to be the height of technological sophistication – something embraced today in the _steampunk _genre (see for example _Castle _S3:4 '_Punked'_) – yet they got their water from wells and used chamber pots to go potty. Four thousand years ago Abraham flushed a toilet and put the kettle on from a faucet. Asia was using fingerprint ID to catch criminals a thousand years before the birth of Christ. The Sumerians had railway carts five thousand years ago. Three thousand years ago the ancient Greeks had automatic doors on the library of Alexandria and steam-powered metal robots. We see homages to old technology in a lot of shows and movies.

The same applies to Hawaii – the Polynesian explorers mastered oceanic navigation using no instruments other than their brains to accurately sail across the Pacific as far as New Zealand; the Aborigines of Australia mastered superlative ocean travel during a period of time when conventional history still has humans sniffing each other's bottoms.

In short, it was really great to see the episode acknowledging something good about Hawaiian history, in a showed that is based in Hawaii, instead of having to watch another series (_Warehouse 13 S4_).

The one quibble is the continuity error it throws up – Chin tells Steve and Danny that there is 'one person' who can help them – but since Gabby is on Oahu and is an archaeologist and is dating Danny, she should know all about the Royal League, as should any of the islands' high school/college/University of Hawaii history professors – in fact, given the number and affluence of the members, the claim that the League is now "defunct" should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Mid-August 2013:

Officer P. Kai, who squares up against Kamekona in S4:1, graduates from the academy, presumably joining HPD, though Oahu has several other police departments, e.g., Pearl City and Waikiki.

25th October 2013:

Lt. Cmdr. Billy Harrington is killed

1st November 2013:

It is exposed that Danny has claustrophobia, something that apparently nobody knows.

Before 8th November 2013:

Mary McGarrett supposedly adopts a baby girl. (Where is Morty Sapperstein one wonders?) Again, this is a highly dubious development with lots of plot potential. Even in California, Child Protection Services are not left-wing extremist enough or blasé enough to casually hand over a baby to an unmarried single woman who is a smoker (S1:4) and who had a youthful DUI arrest (S1:4) plus at least one other undescribed run in with the LAPD (why she can read cop shorthand in S1:13), plus an extremely frequent/patchy employment history, when there are a lot of affluent, stable married couples trying to adopt. I think it is much more likely that the girl is Mary's biological child and she has told everyone it was an adoption to avoid awkward questions. The season may also show some bonding between Mary and Max, who of course is an adopted child who knows nothing of his birth family.

22nd November 2013- December 2013:

Deborah McGarrett, Steve and Mary's paternal aunt visits them as she is terminally ill.

15th January to 19th January 2014:

REAL LIFE (can be incorporated into the show/fiction): Unusually high wave formations (50ft) cause the world's best surfers to flock to Oahu to catch 'monster waves' for the duration – Oahu has some of the most dangerous surf waters in the world, due to frequently changing undertows, riptides and shark attacks. (It appears nobody has told Danny this as yet.)

**Note regarding dates, and time frames and languages:**

**Dates:**

The dates used for this timeline are the standard Western B.C. (BC) and A.D. (AD) format, that is "Before [the birth of] Christ" and "Anno Domini" which is a Latin phrase basically meaning after the birth of Christ.

There is wide usage of B.C.E. (BCE) and C.E. (CE) "Before [our] Common Era and "Common Era"; however these phrases are actually linguistically meaningless unless you replace "Common" with "Christian" in which case why not just use the proper dating to start with?

Other characters or information from other countries or sources, however, may be different. A secular Israeli character – e.g., Ziva David from NCIS – would likely use the standard BC/AD dating system, but an Orthodox Jew would use the Jewish dating system, which uses the abbreviation Anno Mundi (AM) – 20th September 2013 is the year 5774 in the Jewish Calendar – it started 5th September 2013 and ends 25th September 2014 consisting of 385 because it is a leap year containing an intercalary thirteenth month.

Similarly if you used an archaeologist (Gabby Ansaro) or anthropologist character (Blair Sandburg) they would know that BC dates are suffix and AD dates are prefix, so 200 years Before [the birth of] Christ and 15 years After [the birth of] Christ should be written as 200BC and AD15.

Those characters would also know that for BC dates you countdown and AD you count up. For example, if Event B happened in 1492 BC and Event A happened 234 years earlier and Event C 67 years after, to find the date of Event A you _add _234 years to 1492 (1726 BC) but _subtract _67 (1425 BC). For AD dates you do the opposite – if Event B happened in AD 1966 and Event A happened 1642 years earlier and Event C happened 40 years later, then you _subtract _1642 from 1966 to get AD 324 and you _add_ 40 to get to AD 2006. Since Westerners did not visit Hawaii with any meaningful contact until the 1700s, Hawaiian history does not count time in the BC/AD format just as religious Muslims and Jews et al do not.

This is very important in canon and in fan fiction. In Christianity, the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ is celebrated as Easter on Good Friday and Easter Monday in March or April.

However, Jesus Christ died at Passover, 14th Nisan AD33. In the Jewish calendar, Passover always starts on Nisan 14th no matter what day of the week that takes place, but in Christianity the festival is fixed to the nearest Friday-Monday combination. For example, in 2014 for the first time in some years, the date of 14th Nisan AM 5774 also happens to be 14th April AD2014 which is the date of Christ's death, but Easter is not until Friday 18th April 2014.

This could be important because the case could hinge on date of crime or some such, and although the death of Christ and the Passover happened on the same night, the latter is commemorated and the former celebrated five days apart in modern times. Similarly, in the West, each day starts at midnight – but in the Jewish calendar it starts at sunset (usually about 6.00pm) and runs until sunset the next day (6.00pm). So when a religious Jew is grumbling about it being three o'clock in the morning, he means 9.00pm, whereas I would mean 3.00am.

Some cultures also have concurrent calendars – in Britain the academic/school year and the agricultural year runs from September to August. The tax year runs from April to March, and the secular year runs from January to December. But The Russo-Greek Orthodox and Coptic Eastern churches still maintain the Julian calendar that was superseded by the Gregorian calendar in Britain and Europe (but not the USA at first) in 1752. In Britain the religious year used to run from mid-March to mid-March: people celebrated the '12 days of Christmas' from 25th December to 6th January and then went back to work because they got to have another blow out at New Year's Eve on 24th March, which was the last day of the religious year. In Scotland, the New Year's celebration of _Hogmanay_ which runs from the evening of 31st December to 2nd January inclusive (2nd January is a national holiday in Scotland) is more important than Christmas. In a different vein, in Israel, the agricultural year began in October and ended in September about 6 weeks after the start of the agricultural year in Britain.

**Time frames:**

It is generally agreed that a 'generation' is a span of circa 35 years, so 'it happened a generation ago would be an event between 30-45 years ago, and 'two generations back' would be between 65-80 years ago. But why care?

Imagine Steve, Jack and Granddad Steven were all alive in September 2010. Writing your story from Steve's perspective, Vietnam was a generation ago c.35 years (Jack), World War II was two generations ago c.70 years (Steven), World War I (Steven's father) was three generations ago c.95 years and the usurpation/invasion of Hawaii was four generations ago c.130 years ago (Steven's grandfather).

This is important especially if you are writing "vampire" fiction or Moonlight/True Blood crossovers. When I wrote my Angel series, _The Blood Will Tell _(© 2005-2014 The Cat's Whiskers) I had to rewrite a couple of continuity errors because Liam was turned into Angelus by Darla in 1753, and got his soul in 1898, so to him the Irish Potato Famine of 1845 was a laugh riot, as was the Crimean War in 1854. But William wasn't turned into Spike until 1880 – by which time both of those events fell into the 'previous generation category' because William was born in 1854, at the end of the Crimean War. So you can't have Spike waxing lyrical about the gory Battle of Balaclava and 'onwards, into the Valley of Death rode the six hundred' because he was a human baby at the time. Similarly, Liam was born in Ireland in 1727, but Catholic Europe did not switch to the Gregorian calendar until 1752 – Protestant England resisted this Popery for a few years after that.

Likewise in Hawaii 5-0 or NCIS or any contemporary fiction, a man of Steven's generation will "speak" differently, that is have a different characterisation, in a story that has something about World War I – a war that killed their fathers and older brothers, than would Jack McGarrett, who would know only of school history and tales about "granddad".

Likewise Steven's generation would display a different attitude about Vietnam – a war that killed their sons and younger brothers – than would Steve, who only knows his dad Jack served in Vietnam in an intellectual not emotional sense.

It's the difference between sympathy and empathy. Steve's own military career means he can sympathise with his dad and granddad's military experiences, but he can't _empathise_ because you can only do the latter if you _understand_ that experience – if you have lost a parent or child in death, you can _empathise_ with another person who has suffered that same loss, but if you haven't, you can only _sympathise_ with them. That key difference should affect how you create your characters.

A good example is in the show _Nash Bridges_, where Nash's father Nick is a World War II veteran (belatedly awarded the Navy Star) but also the father of Robert Bridges, an Vietnam Navy helicopter pilot MIA/KIA. The excellent late actor James Gammon (1940-2010) portrayed a different approach to World War II (ignoring his own service) than he did to Vietnam (proud of his son) because the former was a personal horror story and the latter was a way to memorialise the child that died far from home.

Getting the character to "speak" with a realistic "voice" for someone of their "generation" or throwing in a passing titbit name-checking/referencing something like that is a nice way to add depth without having to work at it – for example, old granddad telling stories about how he knew Roosevelt and nobody ever believing him until the Library of Congress releases some old photos or something and there is a 20 year old granddad clearly in shot in the Oval Office shaking hands with the President.

Another great example is Judd Hirsch who plays Don and Charlie Epps' dad in _Numb3rs_. Season 5:4 _Jack of All Trades _guest-starring Henry Winkler, is a great episode where Don is reinstated in the FBI but realises he got away with something he ought to have been reprimanded for because the modern FBI is about results and expediency, not morally right actions. But he doesn't have to admit this, because wise, wise old Dad has figured that out already:

'_You feel you got away with something here, that next time, no-one will be there to stop you…' Dad to Don_

_Telling pause/silence_

'_Well don't worry, someone will be there..You. You'll be there.' Dad _

'_Is that supposed to make it easier?' Don asks wryly_

'_Who says it's supposed to get easier?' Dad points out._

It's a beautifully crafted little scene that is pitch perfect, and you really know how much Steve needs Jack to be there delivering such wisdom to his increasingly Wo-Fat style 'the ends justify the means'.

Unfortunately the Western World is infected with rampant ageism which is a pity, because as the African proverb warns, "when an old person dies, a library burns". Way, way, smarter than us on all counts – which is why I was so disappointed by Steve's attitude towards Doris, Mick and Wade in S2 – completely unrealistic in terms of Steve's character, but spot on with modern attitudes.

I know these might seem to be largely irrelevant to fic writing but you can make your story seem incredibly detailed and highly researched without having to do a lot of work just by sprinkling a few well-picked phrases or minor details here and there and it will make your characters much more 3D to the reader.

I know a romantic-suspense writer who's never held anything more lethal than a steak knife who has all of Richard Marcinko's "Rogue Warrior" series and has her male characters mutter about wanting to "rock with an HK" or "MP5 room broom" and you'd swear she had just extracted from a "-Stan" hot zone.

One example is Max Bergman. Despite Political Correctness it is now acknowledged that scientifically male and female humans are so different in every way as to be almost biologically compatible but semi-separate species, like us sapiens and Neanderthals or sapiens and Denisovans or Neanderthals and Denisovans, all of whom had no problems with having sex and therefore children with each other. Men and women have different anatomy, height, weight, internal organs, biochemistry, brain size, brain shape and brain operation. What isn't publicised is that these brain differences exist across the five main "colours" of humanity as well. Caucasian (European) brains and Negroid (African) brains and Oriental brains all work differently from each other – like Linux and Android, Java and Windows – the end user gets the same result at the same speed at the same time but what's going on inside is different in A than in B or C and likewise in B than in A or C.

For example, suppose you had a portable brain imaging scanner that showed how the brain "lit up" when it was doing certain functions. You see the four core cast members of 5-0 standing together and go up and ask them if one of them can swap you a $20 bill for two tens. In Alex O'Loughlin and Scott Caan, the temporal lobe of their brain, which processes language, will activate because that is where they process math/numbers/numerical information. In Daniel Dae Kim and Grace Park, the parietal lobe of their brain, which processes visual images will activate because that is where they process math/numbers/numerical information.

Why the difference? Many Western/Northern hemisphere languages are _symbol_ based, using "letters" representatively _of _meaning, like Viking Runes, English and Arabic. Many Eastern/Southern Hemisphere languages are _literal_ based, using "characters" pictorially _to_ show meaning, like Egyptian Hieroglyphics, Mandarin, and Japanese. You can remember it as 'letters' are words and 'characters' are pictures.

An old example is the number eight, which in English – a symbol based letter language - is five letters, e, i, g, h, t, none of which look anything like eight apples or eight people or even the Arabic numeral 8 or the Arabic numeral VIII. In the Bible book of Genesis, the Global Flood is survived by eight people in the Ark (a giant floating box). In ancient Mandarin – a literal based pictorial language – the numeral eight is a pictogram (picture) of people in a boat.

In a more relevant example, the ancient City States and then Chinese Empire used _fingerprints_ as a means of identification, and verification of identity, as well as in art forms; and fingerprint impressions are _pictorial_ images. If you have ever read the U.S. Fingerprint Sourcebook (well worth a look, even if you aren't a law enforcement professional) in Chapter One it mentions that the earliest – as yet – known example comes from c.220 BC, in a report called, '_The Volume of Crime Scene Investigation – Burglary_' written by a civil servant (who else?) under the Qin Emperor, wherein handprints were used as evidence in burglary investigations (Xiang-Xin and Chun-He, 1988, p.283). By 700 AD fingerprints/palm prints and handprints were all likewise in use in the Japanese Empire and in across India under the Maharajahs and Moghuls. All of these countries have pictorial (character) based language systems, rather than symbolic (letter) based languages systems.

And as a Chief Medical Examiner, having lived and schooled and worked all his life in an environment with a wide ethnic mix of people, Max Bergman as a scientist would know all about that, so you can really show off without needing to do lots of confusing and brain-hurting neurological research in order to show off by having him throw in a passing line that is very 'Science'.

How about this:

"The brain construction is clear via the larger formation parietal lobe here," Max dug in a finger with a faint disgusting squelch, "comparative to the smaller temporal lobe as it…"

"Max, for the love of God…when I said I was a visual learner that was not a code phrase that really meant, "'Yes! Show me gory visceral horrors in minute detail!'"" Danny protested.

Max looked at him for a moment then made that characteristic bird-like head tilt as he laser-focussed on Danny – pure Steve-like...oh yes, Max wasn't the only autistic savant in the room. "You have never informed me that your brain processes learning visually rather than aurally or kinaesthetically, Detective Williams."

"Um he's right, you actually told that to Commander Hale in the tsunami warning station, but you've never mentioned it since," Steve interjected with a face that on anyone else would be "mock" helpful, but Steve tended not to demonstrate that level of emotional nuance, so he was being_ genuinely_ helpful – which didn't lessen Danny's desire to punch him one iota.

"Okay, for the record: I am a visual learner. And for the avoidance of all possible doubt: that is not a code phrase for saying I want to be standing a foot away from disgusting gloopy gory horrors at…oh yes…7.23am in the morning before I've had my first coffee."

"You drink too much coffee," Steve being Steve it was an imperious decree, not a ventured opinion or a concerned protest.

"Steven, I am Italian. It is impossible for me to ever drink _enough _coffee."

"You said that about being Irish and drinking whisky, and being Jewish and drinking red wine, and being Scandinavian and drinking beer."

"Exactly. So Max, what you are saying, in order to cut short this assault on my optic nerves and reach the nearest caffeination station a.s.a.p., is that although we have only the brain and partial skull of the vic., you can tell from the way the brain…is…that the vic., was Asian not Caucasian?"

"Precisely, Detective."

(end excerpt)

Note the effortless demonstration of solid science in that exchange yet Max comes across as totally believable as the CME – or if you have Ducky Mallard visiting Oahu for some reason you can have him say it.

Or how about this:

"The long bones of the femur and the pelvic girdle itself come from a human male, but the internal organs we found belong to a human female." Charlie explained

"But they were found in the abdominal cavity of the male pelvic bones?" Steve asked in confusion, exchanging a glance with Danny. "Are you sure they're female organs?"

"Absolutely." Charlie cleared his throat in the customary manner of a person who has to talk about an embarrassing not-for-public-discourse subject but is determined to soldier through it. "Every species has certain unique characteristics that define it from all others, and even if most of everything else is destroyed if you find them you can be pretty sure what you're dealing with."

"Sure – find nothing but a pair of huge tusks and you don't need to find any more skeleton any more to know it was an elephant." Danny rolled his eyes at Steve. "Animal Planet, Steven. Do you watch anything other than bad action movies and schlock horror movies with mutant sea monsters in them..._Sharktopus_, for crying out loud…" he shuddered, having waxed lyrically and vocally on the subject of _sharks _and _celophads_ – octopi.

"I preferred _Piranaconda_ myself," Charlie quipped.

"You…you are _not_ to enable the giant goof here," Danny scolded.

"They had a Marine Monster Mayhem Marathon on sci-fi during my first week back at home from the hospital, nothing to do but sit on my couch and watch…" Charlie admitted.

There was a tiny pause; Michael Noshimuri's stab wound nearly had killed Charlie, and he had had to recuperate at home for 12 weeks before he had returned AMA to his Chief of Forensics post at HPD.

Rescuing their masculinity, 'cos 'Real Testosterone Does Not Do Feelings', Steve quipped, "Okay, so moving on from 'Dinocroc versus Supergator'."

"Yes, please." Danny growled.

"Well, the pelvic organs included a _clitoris_, which is unique to female humans." Charlie explained.

"Really? What about lady…?" Danny waved his hand vaguely in the air to indicate applicable species.

"Really. And yes, you should feel the envy. Human women are the only females of any species to have a clitoris – scientists have no idea why."

Steve glanced at Danny, who as a father was considered the go-to-guy on the esoteric mysteries of all things _femme _and this ilk.

"I got nothing," Danny shook his head firmly waving his hands again to indicate: This Subject. With a Ten Foot Pole. Not touching. "Rachel told me she had terrible problems when she started puberty so when she was eighteen – the age of adulthood in the UK - she marched to her GP – general doctor they have in the UK – and told him in the Twentieth Century medicine had advanced enough to sort it out and she wanted the good drugs now."

"Uh-huh," Steve, understanding how well Rachel could do formidable and English steel had no doubt that this "GP guy" had folded like wet lettuce to her will.

Charlie cleared his throat significantly. "The issue is that the clitoris serves only one function, and that is to enable human females to enjoy sexual pleasure for the sake of enjoying sexual pleasure. In every other life form, including human men, sexual pleasure – orgasm – is part of or linked to or an effect of the reproductive process or the reproductive organs – even jacking off on your lonesome in the shower. The clitoris has no other purpose but to enable women to enjoy sex because they want to have sex, whether they are aiming to reproduce or not. It's one of the reasons why FGM – female genital mutilation or 'female circumcision' is such a vile and insane practice – it's a direct attack of a woman's quintessential femininity. That is also why it baffles science. It's an organ that shouldn't exist, but it does, apparently because – or maybe as a result of – the fact that humans are the only species currently in existence that has no reproductive cycle. Humans never go into sexual heat, or have a mating season, we are the only species that has sex because it feels good and we like it rather than to reinforce social bonds, or establish hierarchical authority or reproduce more of our kind."

"That's…wow…" Steve shook his head.

"And now unfortunately we go from weird to downright iy-iy-iy creepy." Charlie apologised. "We found only a partial skull cap and some fragments but an intact brain…"

"Crap, it's a zombie apocalypse, isn't it?" Danny groaned.

"That wouldn't be a problem, Danno." Steve grinned.

"Oh really, finding yourself in Season One of _The Walking Dead_ wouldn't freak SuperSEAL?"

"Nope, zombies are easy –"

"Just aim for the head." Steve and Charlie chorused in unison.

"I hate you both – with the fire of a thousand suns. You are both banned from Bad Movie Night – no more _World War Z_, no more _Zombieland_..."

Steve ignored this by simply over-talking with the ease of long practice. "So what's the creepfest about, Charlie?"

"The skull is human, the brain isn't."

Both Steve and Danny looked at the 3D image rotating on his computer screen, a grey three pound lump that could have been anything from a human brain to two week old cauliflower for all they could tell in all honesty.

"Here," Charlie pointed at one of the forensic lab's not exactly cheery framed wall images which was labelled underneath: side view colour diagram of the human brain, seen from the left. They guessed the thick tube/stem going down from near the back bottom over to the right was the brain stem.

Charlie tapped the far left edge of the brain as it curved upwards and round. "This big bit at the front is the frontal lobe. Directly above each eyebrow in the frontal lobe there is a specific area called the frontal pole prefrontal cortex."

"Yeah, that just rolls off the tongue," Danny muttered.

"The FPPC varies in size from around the size of a Brussels Sprout to a small orange – say a tangerine or a nectarine size. However, each FPPC is actually made up of twelve separate segments. Except that humans are the only species to have twelve – primate species, even macaques and bonobos, with which we share most DNA, have only _eleven_. That brain," Charlie pointed back at his screen, "has _eleven _segments, which means it is not human."

"Wait…hang on…what about…chimps?" Danny asked, "See Steven, TV is educational. Animal Planet, you animal."

Charlie shook his head. "Nope. For about forty years the scientific orthodoxy was that humans shared ninety-eight percent of our DNA with chimpanzees, but the mapping of the human genome meant that by 2005 scientists refined that down to only ninety-four percent shared DNA."

"Which means…?" Steve pressed.

Charlie shrugged. "We share around ninety-three percent of our DNA with _shrimp_. We share about ninety-seven percent of our DNA with _lichen_. Every life-form on Earth does share over ninety percent of its DNA with every other life-form on Earth. The quantity of DNA one species shares with another is irrelevant – we are no more related – closely or otherwise - to any primate species than we are to shrimp or lichen – we share too many profound physiological differences that so far have only been matched in extinct human species – Neanderthal, Denisovan, Erectus, Heidelbergensis…"

"Like the clitoris and not having a mating season or reproductive cycle and this Brussels sprout brain bit." Danny grasped.

"Amongst others, exactly. For example add size differential of genitalia. In primates the female only develops breasts when lactating to feed young; a male's genitals increase in size only if he succeeds in becoming dominant and fathering lots of offspring. In humans girls develop breasts at puberty regardless of their childlessness or not and human boys get a certain size of equipment end of – you can have celibate Himalayan monks hung like a horse and the reincarnation of Casanova who stuffs socks down his jockstrap. Yet again, humans are the only species where the breasts and balls are used for sexual pleasure for the sake of it not for some other purpose. Regrettably porn is a uniquely human concept."

"Well that fact ixnays any higher life-form egotism I guess," Danny acknowledged.

"What is relevant about DNA is that it's _where it is_ and _what it does_, not how much you share of it with other species, which changes you from a mollusc to a man. The whole man to werewolf and shape-shifter lore is actually based on real science – goodness knows how but in ancient civilisations that came up with all that stuff in myths and legends like the Minotaur and Medusa, they somehow grasped the concept that if you could fiddle about with human DNA – or the blood, as they would have thought – you could in theory change a man into a mouse or whatever."

"Like taking SuperSEAL's flatbed truck, tricking it out with mega wheels and turning it into a Monster Truck Rally contender?" Danny worked his way through it. "Only with DNA instead of car parts?"

"Essentially yes. That storyline is pure Cybermen – or Daleks – or Zygons."

"_What?"_ Steve demanded.

"Longest running sci-fi series in Britain, _Doctor Who…_alien saves the world, travelling through time and space in a blue box. Except he's a high-functioning sociopath who annihilated his entire world in a galactic inferno to save the universe," Danny rattled off, "but to focus – you're sure that brain is not human?"

"Max Bergman and I scanned it to death – no pun intended - and sent the images to Professor Swaab in Sweden – he's the world's leading neurological pathologist. He confirmed – the twelfth segment of the FPPC that only humans have is called the _lateral _frontal pole pre-frontal cortex. It is what gives human beings a moral conscience, because it allows us to think about more than one thing at the same time and therefore understand how our choices will affect other people – positively or hurtfully. More importantly, it enables us to contemplate the past and consider the future, which is what enables humans to avoid repeating mistakes we have made in the past and to build on previous experience – it's one of the reasons why primate species like chimps still live in trees foraging for food after a hundred thousand years and Steve lives in a house on the bay with indoor plumbing and a microwave oven rather than in a damp cave using flints to scrape animal hides. In mentally retarded children and dementia sufferers who have no concept of consequences of 'the future', and those people who are psychopaths because of genetics not by personal choice to do bad, and in most sociopaths, they have some or all of the twelfth segment congenitally abnormal or damaged via brain injury for whatever reason – car wreck, drug use, et cetera."

"Okay, SEAL or not, I'm a little freaked out," Steve conceded.

"Gattaca." Danny said grimly.

"What?"

"At the risk of referencing the Discovery Channel for the third time in as many minutes, that storyline is a lot more than pure _Doctor Who_, babe. We're talking cloned humans, designer babies – Gattaca. Maybe that's what the perp was fomenting about? Human male skeleton with female organs and monkey brain…"

"Gattaca is a _sci-fi movie_, Danny," Steve pointed out with an eye roll.

"You tell him or me?" Danny asked Charlie with no discernible humour.

"Sorry, Steve," Charlie shrugged. "Gattica is now…it has been for a few years. The birth of the first test tube baby was great for the infertile husband and wife but courtesy of the Law of Unintended Consequences, it turned children into just one more consumer product, and if you want to stay marketable and commercially golden like McDonalds and Denny's what do you need to do?"

"You keep reinventing yourself, babe," Danny informed Steve wryly, "a steady path of 'new and improved'."

"Such as?" Steve folded his arms sceptically.

"Take your pick," Charlie shrugged. "Sex selection is available for only a little more than Danny's rent for that rattrap hovel he lived in during his first eighteen months here – its why female foeticide is rampant in China, Africa, India and Pakistan. Then there came 'saviour siblings'. The first and most famous case was in 2001 when a couple had fertility treatment to create a child who was genetically able to save the older one from Diamond-Blackfan Anaemia. Now it's commonplace."

"Well…it's hard to hate on that…" Steve pointed out.

"Steve, we're not hating. But our point is that couple had fertility treatment that produced a good half-dozen healthy embryos – not eggs and sperm, but _fertilised_ embryos – _living_ creatures. There was nothing defective about them, but those nascent babies not lucky enough to match big brother got tossed in the trashcan with as little thought as if tossing last night's Pad Thai." Danny pointed out. "And there's always something new on the market. How about HMGA2?"

"Aitch-Em-Gee-Ay-Two?" Steve repeated.

"It's a key gene in determining an individual's height." Danny waved a hand up and down Steve's long frame. "If you have a particular version, a la a certain Gigantor SuperSEAL, you get a quarter-inch extra height per foot of vertical growth. If not…welcome to Williams World."

"It's about how the media – newspapers, TV, the internet – portray these kinds of discoveries, Steve." Charlie put in, seeing that Steve still wasn't getting it. "The news media didn't report that 'scientists have discovered that one type of the HMGA2 gene will produce a quarter-inch more height per foot of vertical growth in those individuals born with it', what they reported was that 'people with the _right version_ of the height gene will be taller than those without'."

A dint appeared between Steve's eyebrows and Charlie saw the metaphorical above-head light bulb flicker as Steve conceded, "When the word 'right' is used about something the subtext is 'good' and 'best' and 'advantageous' so therefore 'right version' carries the implication is that something else is 'wrong' and 'bad' and 'worse' and… 'defective'."

Danny gave a sharp nod, "Think about it Steve, what if commonplace fertility treatments like that had been available in the 1970s? Mr and Mrs Williams can only afford to have one child and only want one son. So the four embryos unlucky enough to be girls – they get tossed out with the cold coffee, which leaves two XY embryos. Embryo Em-Ay-Double-Tee has the right version of HMGA2 for up-where-the-air-is-rare growth spurts during puberty to reach your level of oxygen deprived tallness. Embryo Dee-Ay-Double-En-Why Bother will be short and scrappy his entire life. Which son would my parents have now, do you reckon and which one would have been dumped in the lab trashcan with the cold coffee and stale Danish?"

Steve's face when through constipated angst _and _aneurysm to…'nauseated epiphany' Danny decided to christen it.

"And now scientists have determined the key genes in sexuality," Charlie said grimly, "as a direct result of helping transgender people surgically and psychologically integrate in the 'right' sex body."

"Seriously?" Steve asked.

"Seriously…unfortunately ideologues can't have their cake and eat it," Charlie shrugged, "If you accept transgender as being a neuro-sexual-pathology, a genetic _in utero_ defect that can be alleviated but at great expense and suffering – and both scientists and the public _have _accepted that - then you automatically start looking for a way to screen for the problem prenatally and either fix it – which is expensive, hideously difficult and by no means feasible - or else go for the fast, cheap and achievable option of discarding the defective embryos. And transgender is simply a form of non-heterosexuality, which means that all other types of non-heterosexuality have to be accepted to be a neuro-sexual-pathological genetic defect, and not simply a variation of normal neuro-sexual-pathology. Believe me when I say that the first fertility researcher who finds a way to _guarantee_ a heterosexual foetal brain, or at the very least reliably screen embryos who will develop that – nothing but straight babies straight down the line - will be the world's first trillionaire if he or she is smart enough to head for the Patent Office and not the Nobel Prize Committee."

Danny cleared his throat, "Look babe, under normal circumstances I would say that we are obviously dealing with a mind that takes profoundly sicko and transcends it, but in 2011 a bonkers 62-year-old single white Englishwoman used a Danish sperm donor and an Indian subcontinent woman egg donor to produce her ultimate bay-bee accessory because she wanted honey-ringlet hair and that beautiful glowing golden skin-tone that only mulattoes achieve without spending all summer on a sunbed. That poor, poor kid is growing up with two biological parents who lived on different continental shelves from each other – ignoring the whack job raising him his real mommy and daddy's most recent common ancestors who lived in close enough proximity to do the horizontal lambada and produce _him_ was in the Middle Eastern six thousand years ago. Therefore our sicko may be mentally deranged to the _nth_ degree, but he has a valid point, no matter how inappropriately expressed it is – we have been bitch-slapping Mama Nature with our – 'ooh look at the kiddie I can cook up' one-finger salute for thirty years - and ultimate Mean Mother is going to start punching us back real soon."

(end excerpt)

The above has a bit of everything – wit, banter, humour, pathos, real science and How Men Really Do Feelings – it's even got plausible case fic and name-checks sci-fi greats in there. You also get social commentary, political opinion and religious/cultural philosophy for your dime. You also get to show off Charlie Fong or Abby Sciudo or whomever you choose to be the boffin with some real complex characterisation.

You also don't need to devote a lot of time to any of the above – I'd recommend _We Are Our Brains _by Dick Swaab and _The Brain That Changes Itself _by Norman Doidge. I have a three-shelf reference bookcase that includes _Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable_, the _Dictionary of Etymology_, Billy Bryson's _Mother Tongue _and _Troublesome Words_ and _The Word Museum _and _Forgotten English _for real but forgotten words for historical writing. Since I know nothing of fashion I also keep a mail order catalogue handy and when I need to describe a Jersey jacket versus a Nehru one I flick through it and bung down the descriptions. Most reference stuff can be found online, and YouTube has a lot of handy short videos from things like the MOOC _Introduction to Forensic Science _course I took which will help you fake being CSI like you wouldn't believe. If the thought of ploughing through books or even YouTube/Google Hangouts is something you don't have time for, then just do what I did – watch the show. When I started my _A Town Called Eureka _novella I just watched each season and wrote down exact wording – I have no idea what a Mendelblot fractal is but Zane Donovan has an image of it as artwork in his house. That way your characters' speech is truly authentic. We know Danny has and does call Steve an animal, a goof and a Neanderthal so we can use those terms in our story to add that dash of 'realism' – it's the way the Lorne character in _Angel_, played so well by the late Andy Hallett (1975-2009), routinely referred to other characters by using confectionary based nicknames – cupcake, love muffin, caramel cream donut – that a writer can incorporate into his own story and make it really authentic.

**Language**

As is probably obvious, this timeline has been written in British English, not American English or Canadian English or Australian English.

Ninety percent of the time, this isn't a problem, but just occasionally it all comes to a juddering halt. I'll give you my classic reason why:

In British English, kerb is a noun – it is the edge of a sidewalk; by the kerbside, the kerbstone chipped, he tripped over the kerb edge.

To curb is a verb – I managed to curb my anger at her patronising tone; I curbed my desire for just one more chocolate biscuit.

Kerb and curb mean entirely different things. In American English, the one word, 'curb' is used for both, so, when I read a story on Fan fiction Net or AO3 or Live Journal, I get "thrown out" of the story the instant my eyes hit 'curb' because my brain knows that it is the wrong word – like except instead of accept or planets instead of planes or plants. My brain then has to mentally reinsert the _meaning_ that the author is trying to convey.

That is why I have tried in the timeline as far as possible to use terms that can be easily understood and, if you want to, translate the timeline into other languages without having any bizarre translation issues.

I'm not about being prescriptive with any words, but my personal plea is – if you're faced with curb, can you curb your automatic use of the word and pick something else, especially if you are talking about a kerb. The sidewalk, the blacktop, in the gutter…anything other than curb for kerb!

The same applies to other terms as well.

Disinterested means to be dispassionate, impartial neutral. Uninterested means to be uncaring, cruel, heartless. 'Chin Ho's attitude to the case was disinterested' is good. 'Chin Ho's attitude to the case was uninterested' is bad. So instead of dis or un what about using Chin Ho's attitude to the case was dispassionate/neutral/impartial instead, or 'Danny knew Steve did not realise he was coming across as uncaring/cruel/heartless' rather than uninterested. Ambiguity is not your friend, especially when your readers come from many countries where English may not even be in the top five native languages. I'm sure everyone has other examples like divers and diverse or they're (they are), there (place) and their (belonging to), or we're (we are) where (place) and were (past event). If at all possible, rewrite the sentence to use an easier, more widely understood word. Even a really good story can be ruined by being littered with words that are correct but ambiguous, such as

Unbeknownst to him (unknown to him)

Hitherto known as (previously known as)

Hence it was decided (and so then it was decided/so at that point it was)

(I like hence, whence and thence – they are all one word instead of having to use three or four but they are increasingly being discarded, at least in the appalling education 'system' of Britain)

My sisters' monies (all of my sisters had a portion of money each)

My sister's money (my sister had money)

Septuagenarian (in her seventies)

Pulchritude (curvaceous and plump – voluptuous)

Voluptuary (promiscuous, immoral) versus:

Voluptuous (hourglass figure, plump)

Bosom (man – area of chest between nipples; woman – breasts)

Bo'sun (also Bo's'n, Bos'n and bosun – shortened form of Boatswain) is the Warrant officer on a warship and a petty officer on a merchant ship – synonymous with senior deckhand.

Grenade (small bomb)

Grenada (tropical island)

Grenadine (alcoholic drink)

Grenadier (type of soldier)

Drunk (state of inebriation, person who is inebriated – may be one off occurrence or rare)

Drunken (state of inebriation, state of being inebriated – may be one off occurrence or rarity)

Drunkard (habitually inebriated)

Inebriated (drunk)

Intoxicated (high)

Loose (not tight, free)

Lose (misplace, mislay, be unable to find)

Weary (tired, exhausted)

Wary (cautious, suspicious)

While (simultaneously, at the same time as something else)

Whilst (in comparison or contrast to something else)

Advise (to actively give someone your opinion of their choice/decision)

Advice (an opinion about something that is available but is passive)

Stimulation (provoke to action, activate, goad to heightened state)

Simulation (staged visual example of an inanimate object or event/occurrence)

Simulacrum (non-alive image or object or form closely resembling/identical to but not an original living being or plant – Jewish 'golem')

Simultaneous (happening together with, in unison or chorus, at the same time as)

Similitude (similarity to, resemblance to)

Approbation (approval, praise, complimentary)

Opprobrium (disapproval, scolding, uncomplimentary)

Compliment (unsolicited praise about something)

Complement (something that helps, supports)

Psychic (Sigh-kick)

Physic (Fizz-ick)

Physics (Fizz-ix)

Physically (Fizzy-Callie)

Psychically (Sigh-kick-lee)

Obviously you notice the similarities.

Use chest/breasts (or boobs) instead of bosom and Warrant Officer, Petty Officer or Senior Deckhand instead of Bosun so you don't have – the 'drunken bosun clutched me to his bosom'.

Personally, I was always taught that part of being a good writer is that slang is lazy and what may be slang in your part of the world isn't elsewhere. Utter the words, 'I could murder a fag' in Britain and you are explaining that you are desperate for a cigarette; utter those words in America and you are making a homophobic hate speech. In Britain 'not a dickie bird' is a slang phrase meaning you haven't heard about or have no information regarding the question/subject/event – this phrase doesn't exist in the USA so if someone asked you, 'Have you heard anything about the job?' and you reply, 'Not a dickie bird' they will have no clue what you mean.

I was also always taught that 'swear'/'foul' words aren't edgy, or cool just a sign of stupidity and that the person has nothing to say worth listening to and nothing to write worth reading. It is always best to use certain words (if you have to use them at all, really) with 'sparing effectiveness' rather than idle tediousness – the more offensive words I read in one story, the lazier it makes the writer seem – I work long hours in a job where I hear verbal filth being whined and screamed and tantrumed nearly every day – why on earth would I want to spend my leisure time having my eyes battered with the same verbal ugliness in textual form?

Your readers may feel the same way, so it's always better for a woman to have a chest instead of boobs or tits or a rack (not a wrack) or if you must, use a euphemism like 'at least a DD cleavage'. Likewise a man should have a groin or if you must balls, but crotch is too easily mixed up with crutch and simply sounds vulgar.

Remember that you 'speaking' as the character –Danny Williams, father of a daughter, would probably think/say/visually admire a 'stacked' woman or her great rack, but would not use a vulgarity like tits.

A woman is more likely to 'admire a guy's package' or 'lust after the buns of steel' than she is to think or say words like 'crotch' or 'dick'.

And of course, your character might be an alien. In _Babylon 5_, Londo Mollari's Centauri ideal female were tall, curvy women – who were completely bald bar scalp-lock ponytails and who had some nice flexible tentacles (the Centauri produced tentacles from a special frontal pouch in their upper abdomen/human midriff area). On the same show, G'Kar and the Narn were a reptilian race but genetic compatible with mammalian humans and there were instances of mutual sexual interest between the two species

This is not the appropriate place to discuss the sociological history of reptile/tentacle alien/human intersex, but you get the idea that beauty – and hotness in the sexually attractive sense – really is in the eye of the beholder. Several years ago when my weight ballooned due to medication and I was really fed up on holiday – in Hawaii no less – I was thoroughly cheered up when a Samoan man (Samoan men traditionally do the cooking and they're good at it!) explained that in Polynesia, largeness is viewed as healthy (scientifically true, slightly 'overweight' people are healthiest, mainly because BMI is junk science and should be ignored) and wealthy (sadly, if only) and therefore only a Royal male, like the King of Tonga or Samoa would have been allowed to marry me. Queen of Tonga, yeah, I could do that. From a science research viewpoint I found it both very telling and very sad that in the (then) few years they'd had satellite TV reception in Polynesia from the U.S. mainland, the incidence of eating disorders and extreme dieting in young Polynesian women and then younger Polynesian men had increased by a factor of 500% - before 1997 bulimia and anorexia and 'dieting' were unknown in their culture – and they were much better off for it. That snippet was also useful to make me realise that very few cultures are really homogenous – Hawaii may be a US State but its culture is Polynesian, like Alaska is Canadian. Contrast the culture of a lowland Scot to a highland Scot, a Yorkshireman to a Welshman, or a Midwesterner to a Southron or a Texan to a Californian, and so forth.

Moving on to the other words - Technically if a person is under the influence of a lot of alcohol he or she is _inebriated_. If he or she is under the influence of legal or illegal drugs like morphine or cocaine they are _intoxicated_. Drink is to do with inebriate – foodstuffs in liquid form (drinks) (foodstuffs in solid form is 'ingest'). Drugs are to do with chemicals usually in non-liquid solids (powder) or gas, toxins, i.e., toxic. It is much easier to write drunk as a skunk or stoned like a rock or high as a kite than spend five minutes trying to work out the nomenclature.

I lose my car keys and the hot like fire guy's phone number from the bar, but I run when I realise the bull is loose from its field. The waistband of my skirt was loose causing me to lose my dignity when it slid down.

Joey robbed the jewellery store, while Tom kept a look out.

Whilst Joey had the looks, Tom had the brains.

Actually if in doubt about _while _versus _whilst_, just mentally put 'mean' in front of them and see if it looks right:

Joey robbed the jewellery store; meanwhile Tom kept a look out.

Meanwhilst Joey had the looks, Tom had the brains.

For advise and advice, it is all about action or inaction:

I would advise you…is active or it is happening/being said now.

He didn't take my advice is passive; it is past or inactive.

The 's' group words listed above make my brain hurt to be honest, especially one I haven't listed 'similarly' – too many 'i' and 'l' combos in close proximity. And yes, I did once read a story (not in the Hawaii 5-0 fandom) which included the line: 'he simulated her to panting organism'.

Repeat after me: I am the master of my spellchecker, not its slave.

Of course, it all depends on _what_ you want to or are writing about, which can lead us into some very dubious areas that I won't go into here. During an argument at a computer animation class about what is a simulation versus a simulacrum, a definite _acquaintance_ of mine insisted that Rule 34 (If it exists, there is porn of it. No exceptions) applied to anime (cartoons) and since these were on computer, they were _simulations_ even though the human characters would technically be _simulacrum_ (the word is both singular and plural). The idea of anyone bothering with cartoon porn when there is live action seemed redundant to me, until he went YouTube and brought up this anime clip of a law-of-physics-defying-breasts female warrioress flaked out asleep on a riverbank presumably after wiping out an Orc horde when this fish man-monster pops up out of the river and…well, you get the idea.

To be honest, I would strongly urge using phrases like, 'the coffee activated his sleepy senses' or 'the murder scene was a staged tableau of a…' and so on rather than stimulate or simulate. And _verisimilitude_ is faked similarity – during the famous scene in _When Harry Met Sally_, Meg Ryan's actions were the _verisimilitude_ of an orgasm.

Compliment and complement are also best avoided: Joe smiled as he overheard his fickle boss compliment his dear wife and pretended he hadn't heard as his boss came up to him and admiringly said, 'she really is a complement to you Joe.'

You can send a complement of US Navy SEALs to relieve a base under attack, and you can send a compliment on his leadership with the complement of SEALs to the base commander. Does your head hurt yet?

Then we get to the silent 'P' words.

Psychic is to 'impossibly know' about _contemporary_ events that you could not possible have seen, heard, read about or watched remotely. Not to be confused with ESP (extra-sensory perception) which is the ability to see colours, hear sounds, taste substances, smell scents and feel tactile input that are beyond the range of human senses (like being able to see a 'ghost' because it is ultraviolet). Also not to be confused with _precognition_ which is the ability to 'impossibly know' about _future _events before they happen, nor _clairvoyance_ which is the ability to interact with dead 'people'.

Physic is an archaic term for medicine, or tonic – which is why your spellchecker won't spot it as an error. Depending on the type of story you are writing, it may be entirely appropriate:

Danny stared in disbelief. How was this his life? He was in Honolulu in 2014 and not ten feet away an axe swinging dwarf straight out of Lord of the Rings was yelling at Steve, like a sword-and-sandals B-movie knock-off: ''Tis a grievous plague he has, and I have no physic for it!'

'Danny beamed as Steve brought him a huge latte as if his friend had psychically known how much he needed it.'

Her rage/charisma was so strong it was like a physical blow/physical presence in the room itself.

These are important because a good story can be ruined if it is has a lot of unnecessary errors and computer spellcheckers should be used with caution. I read a story on AO3, a Hawaii 5-0 AU that included the sentence:

'The planets hosed with unicorn pop,' instead of 'the _plants_ hosed with unicorn _poop_.'

Then this one:

'Jason, while a bit weary of the rather large walrus', instead of 'Jason, while a bit wary of…'

And this:

'your gun hoe antics' (should have been gung-ho antics)

And of course, with some shows, like Hawaii 5-0, or Star Trek or Stargate or Warehouse 13, you have to fit other languages or technobabble, or other languages _and_ technobabble into the mix as well. How about:

Hokeo (Hawaiian – verb, meaning to love something or someone in secret, like, Malasadas were Steve's hidden vice – he was totally hokeo)

Hokum (bunk, flimflam, so-bad-its-good, B-movie cheesiness, etc)

There are things like 'bug out' – military slang for fleeing a site fast – 'we bugged out of the –Stan with the terrorists on our heels'. To 'book out' means to borrow a book, laptop, or other item from an organisation or person – Had I booked out the projector from the library for my presentation?

And what about _hoa, hoar _and _whore_? 'Hoa' is a Hawaiian word for a concept that means 'brother soul'. The idea is the 'Platonic Spouse', the warrior companion who is always loyal, always stalwart, greatly respected, deeply loved, but not in any sexual context or subtext. Hoar means 'silver-white colour', particularly in reference to anything that is aged or antique – Danny looked at the man with his wizened face and hoary hair. Whore of course (and the slang 'ho') is a particularly offensive word for prostitute (come on, does anyone really believe that any six year old girl anywhere any when in any culture ever sat there and said: when I grow up I don't want to be a fairy princess or a ballerina, I want to sell my body for sex six times a night.) Prostitution may be a necessity but it is never a choice…getting those sorts of words right is fairly important.

I'm sure everyone has many of their own examples on this, but I just thought it worth mentioning, in the hope that certain word choices would be curbed and kicked to the kerb.

One of the reasons I like Fan Fiction Net so much is that it allows authors to see statistical information about how many people look at your stories and from what countries – a lot of the people who look at mine come from English and Spanish speaking nations, so if people want to translate something you've written into their own language for easier reading, it is good to make it as easy for them as you can manage.

I will come back and correct/update the timeline if new information is revealed in the show – e.g., we didn't find out until S4 that Chin is half-Japanese. If it is revealed that Danny is Charlie's dad or Mary is Joan's biological mother, etc., I will update.

© all applicable parts 2014

The Cat's Whiskers


	7. Update information

**This is a timeline/chronology of characters and events for the Hawaii 5-0 (2010) reboot. **

**Chapter 7:**

**Update queries, non-updating information**

First and foremost THANK YOU to everyone who has and is reviewing and letting me know politely about all the massive howlers (in the non-Harry Potter sense) and giant boobs (in the non-anatomical sense) so far mucked up by yours truly – and thanks special to MisterEWriter who noticed how long this timeline has taken me to do – please don't ask me to do one for any of my other fandom writing shows – at least not yet. This one drove me to headaches and drink (not necessarily in that order).

This place holder chapter is for updates that I will post to the timeline as soon as a I am able to do so, or new information that I am not going to include in the timeline **for reasons which will be clearly explained here**.

If you've sent me an update/correction/new info and can't 'see it' on the updated chapters, check chapter 7 first. Also remember that as of now, we here in the UK are a goodly chunk of episodes behind the US, so if you've seen S4:18 and know something is wrong with my timeline, please review and tell me now.

ACndCA reviewed:

PS: You keep going back and forth and calling John McGarrett, Jack. He's John, but Steve's middle name is Jack (the J seen in is Military ID in S1E1, is honor of Jack Lord. I read that somewhere.)

It is true that they named Steve's father (William Sadler) 'Jack' McGarrett in honour of Jack Lord, who of course played Steve McGarrett in the original show and did so much to help it and keep it on air after Leonard Freeman's sudden death. However, that was said by the producers in extra-show interviews. As far as I am aware, William Sadler's character was actually named John McGarrett but was colloquially called Jack, just like Colonel 'Jack' O'Neill in _Stargate: SG-1 _turned out to be Jonathan in one of the later season episodes. As ACndCA said, on Steve's military ID in S1:1, you see only Steven and the initial J.

Can anyone confirm that they have seen or heard in any episode so far whether Steve's middle initial is John or Jack?

Update 9th Feb 2014 – Softballchic34 reviewed (see following pages for full review) and confirmed – as in the excerpt below - that John McGarrett is called John throughout the entire show, except for one instance in S4:13 during Chin's flashback to the time of his father's murder. We can therefore state that Steven's full name is Steven John McGarrett:

The first thing is John McGarrett has never been referred to as Jack at any point in the show. Joe White has always called him John and so has Chin who was partnered with him upon his graduation from the police academy. In the season 4 episode (I forget the #) where Chin has flashbacks to his father's death, John McGarrett is featured in many scenes and is always referred to as Jack. Initially the writers may have intended to call him Jack but that has never once happened in the history of aired episodes. He is always John.

**Important:**

Please provide episode numbers or state "seen/heard on DVD commentary" when you review/send me an update, e.g., as ACndCA has done above when she references that it is S1:1 where we see the initial J on Steve's ID and hear when he rings Governor Jameson and repeats: 'I Steven J. McGarrett…'

If I can be definitive I will update – as far as is reasonably possible I am trying to stick to what has been said or seen on the show and to a lesser extent, shown in the deleted scenes and the box set commentaries and 'shorts' documentaries – I only know about Judge Karen Hidoko because I freeze-framed the shot and if you time that right you can see her name plate, but she isn't name-checked verbally. Likewise neither "Cousin Sid" nor Danny's nephew "Eric" are given a surname, and Danny's never actually names his sisters either – we know only the name of his brother, Matthew, not that of his parents or sisters.

The issue is that a lot of the time the characters say stuff in passing that is difficult to 'catch' or which is ambiguous and open to interpretation (see below about Steve dating Cath) one way or another, so is not 'canon' in that it is unambiguous confirmation.

For example, the review sent to me below by MisterEWriter is perfect, see the bold text:

However I did find at least one error in it. The show does not use Alex O'Loughlin's birthdate as Steve's birthday; Steve's is actually March 10th, 1977. **You can find this on the warrant for his arrest in episode 1.24. **

I can now be definitive that in canon, Steve is born on 10th March 1977, because we've seen it on screen. However, we haven't seen Mary's birthday as yet, or Doris and Jack's wedding anniversary date, or Danny Williams' birthday, etc. – at least to my knowledge. If I'm wrong, let me know!

A second example is from Mari217

Noticed a few discrepancies. One is Danny would not have transfered from Newark PD. He left Newark PD for HPD. **At Konos makeshift graduation, and Makos [Meka's] funeral he wears the Newark PD dress uniform**. he'd wear only the last duty station he'd have held before Hawaii. I noticed that because I'm from NJ 1/2 block from Newark. Hugs, Mari

Mari217 provides two clear reference episodes from S1 where Danny is clearly wearing a Newark PD uniform. I will update the timeline from the above.

Happily, however, there is no continuity error because we can provide a 'plausible'/ 'logical' in universe explanation. We know Danny left Newark PD after 9/11, presumably out of grief at Grace Tilwell's murder, because he was in Hoboken at Halloween 2002.

However, logically, he must have later transferred back to Newark PD, until he moved from Newark to Honolulu – after reading the dog handler story on A03 (if you are the author, please let me know so I can credit you) I would suggest as follows – the only one of his two previous cop partners (Rick Peterson and Grace Tilwell) that Danny has voluntarily mentioned is Grace Tilwell; therefore I think that Danny was asked or else agreed to return to Newark PD from Hoboken after Halloween 2002 by someone suggesting that he apply to the K9 unit and train as a dog handler, which would solve the problem of him having to return and face dealing with a human partner after Grace Tilwell.

Obviously this is not (yet) disclosed in canon, where the only three previous partners (before Steve McGarrett) we know of canonically are Rick Peterson, Grace Tilwell and Meka Hanamoa.

Anon sent in this review:

Anon: Sorry, but Steve most likely attended the Army Navy High School (prep school) in California, and upon graduating, did, in fact, apply to and become accepted into the Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD. After four years there as a midshipmen, he would have, upon graduation, received a commission in the Navy as an ensign, an officer in the Navy.

To be honest, I think Anon's idea is just as valid (probably even better) as Steve being sent to Annapolis to finish his high school education (if I read Annapolis website right that is possible to do). The reason that I have not updated the timeline with Anon's suggestion is twofold:

There is nothing in canon one way or the other as to my knowledge Steve, nor Mary, nor Joe White et al, has specifically stated where Steve (nor Mary) respectively went when Jack sent them away in 1992, so the suggestion has equal validity to my theory that Steve went to Annapolis

In Season 1 it is made clear in canon references that Jack McGarrett put Steve and Mary on different planes and that they did not see each other from 1992 to 2010. It is clearly implied in Season 1 that Mary Ann has lived in California since 1992 – she specifically references living in Los Angeles. If Steve had been sent to the Army Navy High School then logically he and Mary would have been sent together on the same plane and lived with the same relative? Also since they would both have been in proximity to each other in California, why did they not see each other for 18 years? Steve being sent to Annapolis on the East Coast whilst Mary was sent to LA on the West Coast fits more plausibly into the S1 statements made by both Mary and Steve which explicitly demonstrate they did not see each other between 1992 – 2010 and had no verbal contact from 2000-2010.

Cfvera posted the review:

Steve opening the door when the cop came to tell them that is mom was dead, doesn't automatically mean that his dad was at work. Steve could have simply just opened the door.

This is true, however, the sense I picked up from what Steve said is that he was the one who was informed about Doris's 'death'. It also occurred to me that if Jack _was_ in on the fake-death plan, arranging to be on shift on that Sunday afternoon meant he didn't have to be at home to lie to Steve's face that his mother was dead – of course that is just speculation, the phraseology is ambiguous.

All the indication from the show is that Catherine was in a relationship or had a thing with Steve before she was with Billy, the later being more like a rebound. 3x20 (I think) the north Korea episode after Freddie tell him to not mess things up with her, Steve's face indicates that he already did, so she was most likely with Billy at that time. We don't know for sure, but I think they are supposedly going to clear that at the end of this season.

To be honest, the impression I always got was that Cath dated Billy first, then had recently started dating Steve when he and Freddie went to North Korea and Freddie was encouraging him to seize the romantic gift horse with both hands before Cath wised up and went back to Billy Harrington (let's face it, Justin Bruening wasn't exactly hard to look at after all!) If you look at Catherine Rollins in Season 1 (when Michele Borth was an occasional guest spot only) she is clearly a confident career woman who, whilst she loves Steve, is clearly also far more in love with her _career _than she is _him_. It is only in Season 3 to 4 that we get the shift towards stereotypical/cliché women-want-white-picket-fence-domesticity (look at what they did to B'Elanna Torres' character in this regard in _Star Trek: Voyager_). I won't update this bit on the timeline yet until we get some definite canon clarity.

I don't remember in which episode did Cath commented on Steve's nickname. Can you please tell me which one is it?

That makes two of us – can anyone confirm the episode – it was in Season 1 or possibly 2, when Danny learns about "Smooth Dog" to his incredulity – it may have been Season 1:9 which is the Nick "Bullfrog" Taylor episode?

I will update as soon as I can, though this may take a few days.

Softballchic34 reviewed as below and noted how problematic resolving some of the continuity issues are – especially in Season 2 versus Season 1, in a way that is at least vaguely plausible and logical for the poor fan-fiction writer trying to keep some semblance of in-universe plausibility. At this point, my friend, a keen fan of the overly tattooed Australian contingent, merely raised an eyebrow at me and said, 'but that's what you _do_…' Therefore I am working on a "big update" to try and resolve these issues.

The first thing is John McGarrett has never been referred to as Jack at any point in the show. Joe White has always called him John and so has Chin who was partnered with him upon his graduation from the police academy. In the season 4 episode (I forget the #) where Chin has flashbacks to his fathers death, John McGarrett is featured in many scenes and is always referred to as Jack. Initially the writers may have intended to call him Jack but that has never once happened in the history of aired episodes. He is always John.

Chin Ho graduated High School in 1989, I know this because someone posted a picture on twitter during the filming of the episode about Chin's high school reunion episode. The picture showed a banner saying "Welcome Back Kukui High Class of 1989.

The biggest confusion revolved around Steve and Mary being sent away as teens. In 2.14 the flashback with teenaged Steve and John McGarrett. Steve walks into the house after school to find his father sitting at the table and John proceeds to tell teenage Steve that he is sending him and Mary away for a while. To which Steve responds with "I just started my junior year." Meaning that this took places 5-6 months after Doris's death as the US school years starts in September (August in some places) and ends in May/June. John says "I'm sending Mary to live with your Aunt Deb in LA and Joe managed to get you in the Army Navy Academy so you will only be a few hours away from each other."

The Army Navy Academy is a boarding school in Carlsbad, CA near San Diego so Steve didn't live with relatives. He lived on campus at the Academy. He did not go straight to Annapolis. The USNA (Annapolis) is a post secondary University and graduates from the USNA graduate with a 4 year college degree and the rank of Ensign. It is not an Officer Candidate School. They also do not have a high school portion at Annapolis. They have summer programs for high school students but do not have any courses that allow high school students to attend to finish high school. So Steve would have graduated from the Army Navy Academy in CA and then attended Annapolis at age 18 in 1994 for college.

As far as Mary, until 2.14 we do not know the names of the aunt she is sent to live with. All we knew prior to this was that she grew up in LA after John sent them away. I can't find the episode or scene that you think she says Aunt Em or Ann. In 2.14 John clearly says Aunt Deb. And is 4.09 it is made clear that Deb McGarrett raised Mary after John sent them away and that she and Mary had a close relationship, it also implies that Steve was close with Deb as well. In 4.09 it is also made clear that Deb McGarrett is in fact John's older sister. Steve tells Danny that his Aunt Deb showed up at his house and Danny says something like "Oh your Dad's sister?" which Steve confirms that Deb and John were siblings.

As for Mary and Steve not seeing each other, again the writers have messed up continuity. At one point Mary says they haven't seen each others since Doris's funeral which was debunked by the flashback scene in 2.14 since it had been several months since the funeral that John sends them away. At another point it is mentioned that he haven't seen each other in 10 years. Steve's rant about checking Mary into rehab and bailing her out of jail in the deleted scenes implies that they had seen each other after being sent away. So really we do not know what their contact was prior to meeting again in season 1. Given the close relationship Mary, Steve, and Deb seemed to have in 4.09 it would seem that Steve did spend time with Mary and Deb while he was at boarding school.

Because Steve went straight to Annapolis he never would have been given an enlisted ranking of Chief Warrant Officer, etc. He started out in the Academy as a Midshipmen and would have been an Ensign when he graduated so while he was at BUD/S he would have been at minimal an Ensign or possibly a Lt. JG (junior grade). Midshipman is a rank between CWO2 and Ensign and is only given to those who attend USNA and is only used during their time at the Academy. Also, at the time Steve was in BUD/S Joe White was a Senior Chief. He would have had to have gone to OCS after that to get officer ranking and was a Lt. Cdr when he was forced to retire. He never made it to the rank of full Cdr.

Regarding the above, the Joe White character is listed in the recurring guest star cast (Terry O'Quinn) as Commander Joe White, USN (Retired). I am also sure that in the S3:20 flashback, Joe was Lt. White.

© all applicable parts 2014

The Cat's Whiskers


End file.
